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Aug. 6, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
36:54
COL. Douglas Macgregor : Does Trump Understand the Russians?
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Hi, everyone.
Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Thursday, August 7th, 2025.
My dear friend and great friend of the show, Colonel Douglas McGregor joins us now.
Colonel McGregor, of course, you need no introduction.
Thank you very much for joining us.
I want to talk to you about what is the issue of the moment, whether President Trump and President Putin are going to get together and ultimately your view about whether President Trump understands.
the Russians and understands President Putin.
But before we do, some other issues that I need to raise with you.
A few months ago when President Trump as a favor to Prime Minister Netanyahu ordered the Pentagon to bombard the Houthis, a bombardment that Secretary of Defense Hegseth called a splendid victory.
It ultimately ended in no movement on the part of the Houthis at all.
But that's not my question.
Did the U.S. dangerously deplete a certain category of missiles which were used by the Pentagon in that fruitless attack?
I think we've dangerously reduced our arsenal of missiles, period.
period, not just the ones that were used in that attack.
And of course, you're referring to the article that we discussed earlier today, or at least I think I sent it to you.
Yes.
And what this article reveals is that, you know, we're woefully behind in the production capacity of all these missiles.
They were talking about the SM-2 Block-3, which is actually an SM-6 missile now.
We can produce, we think, roughly 500 to 600 a year.
If you're going to do the kinds of things we are doing, if you're going to risk war, all out war with anybody today.
today who has any military capability at all, you need to have a production capacity that is 10 times 600.
And that's just the SM series missiles.
We haven't even talked about the Patriot missiles.
All of our missile production is very limited, and we have done nothing to fundamentally change that.
And this is not a new problem, and that's part of what was in that article.
We have flag officers, in other words, admirals in the Navy and generals, I think, in the Army and the Air Force, all of whom should be held accountable for the dire straits that we are in with regard to the production of these missiles.
because they're the ones that over the last 30 years have been in a position to change this outcome.
And they haven't done it.
And of course, then you have the Missile Defense Agency, which is another culprit.
We've spent an awful lot of money.
We don't know where it went.
We're not sure what we're getting for it.
So the whole thing is a disaster, frankly.
And if we are drawn back into the war again with Iran, which I suspect we will be, Well, then it's going to be even more acute then because we haven't been able to make up the shortfall that we've ended up with at this point.
How?
How, I don't want to get too deep into this, but how much of our supply of missiles for our own national defense has been depleted by this folly in Ukraine?
Oh, well, that's been an enormous drain on us.
That's why the joke that came out as soon as we announced that we were going to.
have another package that President Trump was going to sign off on.
That's in addition to the $55 billion that's currently under discussion.
The joke was, well, nothing will show up for at least a year with regard to Patriot missiles and radars.
And when it does, you'll end up with 17 minutes, if you're lucky, of air and missile defense.
In other words, you just don't have the density of missiles that you absolutely need if you're going to provide any effective point defense, not area defense, point defense.
In other words, you can't defend Ukraine, but you can defend certain points.
Well, right now we can't even do that.
And then when you start talking about a potential conflict with Russia, I think the NATO study that came out last year is still unchanged, and that is that we can defend perhaps 5% of NATO territory against air and missile attack from Russia.
Well, that's nothing, Judge.
This is all absurd.
That's why the threats that we've been making are utterly foolish and empty.
If President Trump and Secretary Hegsef unleash this foolish General Donohue to take Kaliningrad, what will happen in response to the American troops in Europe?
That's Russian national sovereign territory.
So we have to assume that that would be regarded as an act of war against the Russian state.
If you pay attention to what's happened over the last few weeks in Belarus, there is an effective unification underway between Russia proper and Belarus.
Unification in the sense that Belarusian citizens, there are only 8 million of them, but they can now vote in elections that occur inside Russia.
They can hold office inside Russia.
In other words, effectively, Belarusian citizens are being given all the rights and privileges of Russian citizenship.
In return for this, you have these Oryshnik missiles that are also deployed on Belarusian soil.
That means that right now, in areas that are just west of Minsk, they can launch missiles against Germany, which would be undoubtedly one of the targets given the numbers of forces we have in that country, that would be impossible to stop because they're hypersonic and they would arrive within a few minutes.
In other words, you're no longer launching from Russian territory.
You're launching from western Belarus.
So the idea that you're going to successfully overrun and take East Prussia, called Kaliningrad now, is absurd.
It's not going to work out that way.
Frankly speaking, I don't know of any operation in modern military history where somebody said, we're going to attack this enclave that is heavily defended and we'll take it within the space of a day or two.
I mean, it's just sort of absurd to even make such a statement.
So I think it's nonsense.
I think it was a bluff, frankly, and a very ill-considered bluff.
And I don't know why the White House permitted it.
You know, I'm assuming that the White House and Hagseth knew it was coming.
If they didn't, then one wonders why Donahue is still on active duty.
But that's another issue.
Well, they must have known of it because they didn't rescind it.
They didn't neuter it.
Yeah, I think this is back to something else that we've discussed repeatedly, though, judge.
President Trump is someone who believes threats and bullying work.
I think this is the product of his New York City life experience and the real estate market.
And, you know, frankly, if you look at the White House right now and the people running things and surrounding Trump, it looks like the New York City delegation is running our country.
So it may be that everyone is of one mind that threatening and bullying is an inherently good idea and that it works.
I don't see any evidence for that.
And I think it's very dangerous, particularly with Russia.
But I suspect that that may be the mentality at work.
Well, before we get to Russia and President Putin and President Trump, your friend and colleague, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, agreed with his friend and colleague, Colonel Bill Attor, that the United States is a failing, failing empire.
Do you agree with that characterization?
Well, the administration is failing, and I think they are ultimately failing right now.
And that becomes more and more evident with each passing day.
go across the range of issues.
There is no strategy for There's nothing going on there.
I mean, the stuff that happens is all impulse-driven.
I see no evidence for a serious effort to deal with the problem on a national level.
That's one example.
You can go through a number of them, but I think when it comes to our overseas presence, everything is impulse-driven with President Trump.
There is no strategy.
I have never detected any strategy.
When he took over as president, I think he's behaved as he has in the past.
Now I'm in charge.
Everybody has to do what I say.
These are my ideas.
We're going to go forward and implement them.
And when he runs into opposition, he usually backs down, then he tries something else.
In other words, there is no coherent strategic framework that guides the application of military power or a national industrial policy.
You see the same thing with the tariffs.
Everyone who opposes me and what I want to do to Russia will have to face 100% tariffs.
Then they suddenly back down and say, no, only 25% tariffs.
Well, the next question is, why tariffs at all?
Well, we're going to punish you, India, India, with whom we've had friendly relations for a long time, that is known to have good relations with Russia.
In fact, India is a state you would turn to for help and assistance in communicating your desires, your goals and interests to Russia.
It's not a state that I would offend or alienate, but that's what we've done.
And so Mr. Modi has said, thank you very much.
We're not interested.
Go fly a kite.
The Japanese have said, we're going to buy all the oil and gas we want from Russia.
It's all part of the same thing.
There is no coherent strategy with attainable political military objectives.
None.
A few minutes ago, President or Prime Minister, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu announced that it is now the public policy of Israel to use the IDF to occupy the Gaza Strip.
If he asks President Trump and President Trump orders American troops on the ground to help Netanyahu, troops not there to feed Palestinians, but to kill them, what do you think?
Secretary Hegseth will do and what do you think he should do?
Well, he'll implement the order.
Everyone in Washington will.
Do we have to go back over President Netanyahu's five standing ovations in front of Congress?
Who is in charge here?
Let's wake up and smell the proverbial coffee.
Prime Minister Netanyahu is, in fact, when it comes to these matters, President of the United States.
He's in charge.
Now, the question is, what do you do if you're in uniform and you're being ordered to do something that you regard as atrocious?
as contravening basic law of war and humanity.
that's another matter.
I mean, I'm sure that somebody somewhere in, But as far as the people at the top, they're all owned.
They owe everything to the lobby.
They are going to do what they're told.
Let's get to the issue of Presidents Trump and Putin meeting and the conditions under which they're meeting.
Yesterday, President Trump signed an executive order characterizing the Russian Federation as posing a material threat to the national security of the United States.
Isn't this absurd?
Isn't it in fact General Donahue is exhibit one the other way around?
Well, look, you know, judge my views, but we have to understand something.
And this has happened before when President Trump was in his first term.
Have the critical findings at the Central Intelligence Agency changed?
since he became president.
You know, these findings essentially say who is a threat, who is not a threat, why is it a threat?
It's very carefully detailed in its analysis and foundation.
Well, the answer is nothing has changed since President Trump became president a second time.
All those findings are intact.
So no, that's utterly ridiculous.
And I think privately, President Trump probably feels that way, but he lacks the strength.
He lacks the self-confidence, the conviction.
to step away from that and say, well, that's ridiculous.
No.
And we have no interest under any circumstances in going to war with Russia or, for that matter, China.
There's no interest on our part strategically in doing so.
In fact, we have a strong interest in coming to some sort of agreement with Russia that averts any conflict at all.
But he's not there.
That's not what he's going to do.
So he is once again conformed to what the status quo dictates, which is a status quo he did not create, but nevertheless he's subordinate to.
Why would President Putin negotiate with President Trump while he is funding a war against Russia?
while American intelligence agents are arming missiles and other projectiles trying to kill Russian troops.
Donald Trump.
Trump kills the people he's been negotiating with.
Just ask the Iranians.
Well, he's picked that habit up from Netanyahu, who kills most of his negotiating opposites.
Look, I think we have to understand a couple of things.
The Russians have always been receptive to the idea of talking to us.
Let's go back to the Biden administration.
It was not the Russians who refused under any and all circumstances to speak to President Biden or his administration, far from it.
We were the ones that said, no, we will not talk to you.
We are morally superior to you.
You are bad.
And because you are bad, we can't talk to you.
This is sort of standard leftist nonsense.
President Trump came into office and the Russians made it very clear that they're quite willing to talk to him.
So this is not new by any stretch of the imagination.
However, the question is, what is the purpose of the meeting?
The Russians aren't fools.
They know how President Trump thinks and behaves.
President Trump is very short-term in his horizon.
He's not looking long-term at anything.
President Trump thinks in terms of, I got to get away.
a win.
Well, you know, I got to be the guy that wins.
I have to dominate this.
They know that.
So the real question is, why are they bothering to meet with him?
We don't know what President Trump has privately said because the Russian position is very well known.
It's not going to change.
Now, there are things that we can do that can accommodate them, and there are things that they could do that could accommodate us, particularly if we're willing to look at a larger strategic picture.
And the Russians, if you go back to 2021, before the intervention even began in February of 2022, they set some proposals to us.
And if you look at these proposals, they are about the security architecture of Europe.
And now I think the Russians would be interested in talking not only about the security architecture in Europe, but also in the Middle East and Southwest Asia, because we are busy on their southern border now, along with the Israelis, trying to create havoc and chaos in Azerbaijan and elsewhere.
So I think they're interested in the larger strategic picture.
What are we interested in?
I think President Trump is interested in a meeting that makes a hero out of President Trump.
Right.
Where he can stand there and say, well, I have brought together Zelensky and Putin and we've made peace.
It's not going to happen.
The Russians are going to talk to Zelensky.
They don't consider him remotely legitimate, nor should they.
The question is, what does President Trump want?
And he says he wants Zelensky president.
And as far as I know, in this back and forth over the last several hours, the Russians have said absolutely not.
And he said, well, if Zelensky is not going to be there, then I can't meet with you.
Which, of course, is absurd because remember, Zelensky, along with this war in Ukraine, judge, is not his war.
Zelensky isn't necessarily his man.
In fact, I'm still trying to figure out why President Trump didn't stand up, grab Zelensky by the scruff of his neck and throw him out of the Oval Office when he was over here.
But, you know, I'm at a loss to figure out what's going on with President Trump, except to understand that in basic terms, he's a reality TV guy.
He is a brilliant marketer, and he wants a meeting that's going to make him look great and his administration look great.
The problem is I'm not sure he's going to get what he wants because the Russians are substantive.
They're looking for a real outcome.
And I think it's the larger strategic architecture that is of greatest interest to them, because, frankly, from the Russian standpoint, this war in Ukraine is grinding to a very slow halt.
And when it ends, it's going to end on their terms anyway.
So there's not a whole hell of a lot to negotiate.
Our friend and colleague Scott Ritter says that President Putin has reduced his six demands to end the conflict down to two.
The first is that Ukraine will acknowledge that the four donbus areas in eastern ukraine are russia the military will leave the ukrainian uh governmental apparatus that remains will leave and the second is that the remainder of ukraine will have nothing whatsoever to do with NATO.
How could President Zelensky agree to that?
He'd never make it back to Kiev alive.
Well, I think if it were up to a Ukrainian leader of Ukraine, a genuinely legitimate Ukrainian, an agreement could be reached.
They may not like it, but the Ukrainian people want this war to end.
There's no doubt about that.
Zelensky is never going to acknowledge the legitimate control of anything in eastern Ukraine by the Russians.
So that's the first thing.
So that's an absolute non-starter.
Secondly, Ukraine That is whatever remains of this Ukrainian state, what we call rump Ukraine.
And I'm not sure that the current Ukrainian leadership is prepared to go along with that either.
I'm unconvinced that there are only two demands, though.
I listened to translated, of course, comments by Ushikov this morning.
who was speaking for the government.
I did not get the impression that all but those two demands had been brushed aside.
So I'm a little skeptical of that.
Well, make it even more difficult for there to be any kind of an agreement.
Do you get the impression?
I do.
And my impression is from a Russian talk show called The Great Game, on which I appeared a few hours ago.
And one of my questioners was a former general, the head of the Russian military intelligence, who's now a Russian senator in the upper house of their legislature.
They're of the view that after President Putin told Mr. Whitcoff that he would meet President trump then the americans added the condition uh of zelensky being present then putin's people immediately said basically, what are you crazy?
That's not going to happen.
And that's the Russian understanding or my understanding of the Russian understanding of how this played out in the past five or six hours.
No, I think that's probably true.
And again, this is the sort of thing that President Trump probably was accustomed to doing in the New York City real estate game.
In other words, you arrange for a meeting on the basis of assumptions that are then suddenly overturned once you agree to the meeting.
And there's no doubt that Whitcoff probably said, the president just wants to meet with you and wants to discuss a range of issues.
And we think it's important to talk and then ultimately leaves and then later on it's announced we want Zelensky to be president.
Again, the Zelensky piece is a complete mystery to me.
That man and his regime are part and parcel of this whole sick MI6 CIA Biden administration cabal that brought it into existence.
Why President Trump gives a damn about any of that, why he's interested remotely makes no sense at all.
If he's serious about saying this is not my war judge, the hell with that.
Right.
Nobody believes that anymore.
But what you just said is the Russian understanding of all this.
Does Donald Trump and do the people around him, Vance, Egsef, Rubio, wherever else you want to put in that group, I don't think they understand the Russian mentality or Vladimir Putin's thinking and personal determination.
Do you?
Well, I can speak, you know, for Secretary Rubio.
If you recall when the first meetings were held after Trump came to office in Saudi Arabia.
Secretary Rubio said something that was true, that these meetings about normalizing relations with Moscow had gone very well.
He was right, they had.
And that was a truthful statement.
My impression at that point from Secretary Rubio was that we were genuinely interested in a normalization of relations, quite apart from the whole issue in Ukraine.
And there was a justifiable understanding in Trump's mind, at least at that point, that our relationship with Russia was far more important about any short-term goals we may have in Ukraine.
That seems to have gone by the wayside.
Now, where does Secretary Rubio stand?
I don't know.
I'm still trying to figure out why Whitcoff goes to Moscow and not Secretary Rubio.
Because Whitcoff is the de facto Secretary of State because he's a billionaire real estate developer who has worked with Donald Trump.
Rubio is the legal Secretary of State.
Well, this is why people are referring to the New York City delegation in command and control of the United States of America.
Right.
Which is, these are unelected people.
Yes.
Unelected, unconfirmed.
unnominated, unconfirmed by the Senate.
Before we go, I want to go back to Israel for a minute.
General Flynn, that General Flynn made a very, very interesting statement.
I'm not sure when it was, Chris.
It was either yesterday or today on Steve Bannon's show about his understanding of what happened on October 7th.
Now, this is a little long, but it's compelling.
Chris, cut number 20.
And I know that there's some machinations and there's got to be some big, big problems right now internal.
And Netanyahu's dealing with it with the IDF.
They're going to have to do some soul searching.
And I mean immediate soul searching because the 7th of October.
was a date, you know, that they still have not been able to, and there's an investigation going on, and I've already heard from some of the soldi of
of the Israeli military were told to stand out?
Because I know from people I know, this is a very contentious area, and it's going to be explosive.
Are you hearing the same thing?
Steve, you can go back to interviews that I did, like, the next day and the following week after October 7th in multiple broad alternative media where I said something went wrong because, Steve, I have personally walked that border.
Incredible.
If you go back and review the programs that you've had with me within 60 days.
days of the event, I said that this was not a real event, that in fact this was allowed to happen.
I pointed to the warnings given by the Egyptian military intelligence to the Israelis.
I also pointed to the group of intelligence officers inside the IDF, women, who were employed exclusively for the purpose of watching everything that happens in Gaza, and they reported an imminent attack.
I also agreed completely with Max Blumenthal who talked about the fratricidal killings.
You know, the IDF comes in, guns blazing, ends up killing a lot of people.
The question is where were they before?
Why was there no reaction force.
Remember, I too have visited that area.
I visited that headquarters.
And I know some of the top people in the Israeli Defense Force.
Those were very professional, competent people, competent officers, extremely sharp.
They had a complete grasp of everything.
And I said at the time, this smells bad.
This is not real.
This was allowed to happen so that it would be a trigger for the larger war.
Now you're hearing two card-carrying Zionists who have always stood by the Israelis who are now suddenly saying a year plus later, oh, this doesn't look good.
Well, welcome to the party.
Thank you for showing up.
You're a little late, damn it.
Are the Israelis blackmailing Donald Trump?
I wouldn't be surprised.
It wouldn't be hard.
I mean, look, the man's a billionaire.
And, you know, they do all sorts of things because they have the money to do it.
They're always surrounded by lots of women or anything else they want.
So I suppose anything is possible.
I would simply say this.
I think most of us, and I include myself in this category, what adults do, men and women, in private is their business, judge.
I mean, I am not interested in what they do.
Whatever they do, they can do.
But when you include children, it's over.
That's unacceptable.
And that's the real question here, because we know that Epstein was a pedophile.
We know that he was feeding the appetite of pedophiles.
This is a procurer, a pimp.
And this man was actively engaged in blackmailing, not in the usual sense for money, but working for the Mossad.
And I don't doubt the CIA had a hand in it as well., maybe MI6.
So unfortunately, the possibility that he was or is being blackmailed is real.
The question is, for what?
If it's women, come on.
Every NFL star, every National Basketball Association player, all these people, they have endless access to women.
And if they're in the other direction, men, I suppose.
We don't care.
That doesn't matter.
I mean, it may be unsavory.
It may lower people's opinion of someone on the basis of that kind of behavior.
But what really counts here more than anything else is children.
We have too many children disappearing in this country every year.
We still have children being trafficked over the border with Mexico and frankly into our harbors and across into Canada.
It's horrendous.
It's offensive.
It's wrong.
It's evil.
That's what bothers everybody and that's what President Trump needs to be sure he is not part of.
I suppose he's tainted just for being a friend of Epstein.
He must have known what Epstein was doing.
I would find it inconceivable that Trump himself engaged in this, but he must have known what was going on.
Well, when you lie down with pigs, you inevitably come up smelling like garbage.
That's the bad news.
And again, that's the last thing I want to hear about the president of the United States.
So I hope that's not the issue.
But I think they're going to have to come clean with this.
I think these Epstein files are going to come out.
And if it does turn out that he's being blackmailed, well, first of all, if that's the case, then he has a choice.
He can either endure the shame and the misery of being outed publicly or he can resign.
But if you're the president of the United States, you cannot make policy decisions on the basis of what a foreign intelligence entity is holding against you.
Right.
Nor can you give a commutation or a pardon to the sidekick of this pedophile whose conviction was based on the evidence of those she transported to him.
Well, what's even, yeah, and I think what's even more disturbing is the reports that are coming out that wealthy Jewish billionaires and others are pouring money and influence into whatever they can.
to help and rescue this woman.
I don't understand that.
That's reprehensible.
That's the last thing.
And that's probably one of the reasons that she's now being released from the prison where she was being held and given some sort of minimum security opportunity, which as I understand it, when it comes to sex crimes, you shouldn't have that option.
She's in a prison that is forbidden to have to house sex crime people, particularly people that were involved in trafficking, but that's where she is.
Whatever she said to Todd Blanche, Trump's former lawyer, now the number two person in the department of Justice was enough to cause them administratively to move her.
All right, enough with all this.
Colonel, thank you very much.
Thank you for letting me.
I could just add one last thing for sure.
Of course.
You remember that President Trump sat in the Oval Office and turned to Zelensky and said to him, you have no cards to play.
Right.
Well, right now, President Trump in Ukraine has no cards to play.
If telling Donohue to threaten war against Russia is the card he thinks he has to play, then he's lost his mind.
Because the thing we need to keep in mind, if you go back through all these simulations that we have had over many, many years.
And I'm talking about in my experience in the military when I was on active duty and since then, all of the ones that specifically were involved with the Soviet Union inevitably escalated to the nuclear level.
And when they did, people concluded pretty accurately that once you hit that level, it was very difficult to control anything.
And the notion that you could use a so-called tactical nuclear weapon, and be sure that everyone on the other side would know, well, this is only tactical.
You know, as Colin Powell said at the time, I don't think you can drop a nuke on someone and then tell them this is a small one and not expect a response.
It's just nonsense.
I think we've reached the point where James Madison, and you're a better constitutional scholar than I am, I think it was in number 10, he said that they're trying to structure power in such a way in government to compensate or at least cope with the possibility that we will not, quote unquote, always have an enlightened man at the helm.
The problem is we've reached the point where I don't think we have very many enlightened men.
Anybody who talks casually as this four star did, this man Donahue and another co-architect of the disaster in Afghanistan and its withdrawal.
Once you talk in those terms, you demonstrate that you've lost touch with reality.
And the bad news for us, or I guess the good news for us, is that the Russians haven't, because Putin has bent over backwards to avoid these provocations leading to a nuclear exchange.
That's the last thing that he wants, and he will do everything he can to avoid it.
But at some point, He will lose patience if we persist along these lines.
And I would not want that to happen.
I think it would be better for us to now exercise some restraint and find a different way forward.
Negotiate intelligently.
But first, if you're going to meet with the man, and this is something President Trump needs to understand, you have to have a larger strategic architecture in mind.
It's not enough just to have a meeting and say, well, let's sort out Ukraine.
No, let's sort it all out.
Let's make it clear what our interests are.
What are your interests?
What are our interests?
we make these harmonize and if we can then we can avoid future conflict that ought to be the goal i don't know if donald trump understands that or even cares about it, or if he just wants to bring about a even temporary cessation in activities so that the people who vote on the Nobel Peace Prize,
for which he was nominated by Benjamin Netanyahu, you can't make that up, will look upon him favorably.
Well, the group of women in Norway that decided the last one that I paid attention to gave it to Barack Obama for being not white and getting elected.
Right.
Now I suppose you could turn around and do something equally stupid for Trump.
I've kind of walked away from the whole Nobel Peace Prize business, the ones that have to do with substance, especially science, engineering, technology, and possibly literature are meaningful.
But this business of the Peace Prize, I don't know that it's all that meaningful anymore, Judge.
Yeah.
Colonel McGregor, thank you.
Thank you for allowing me to chat with you for this duration and on this vast array of topics.
Thank you for being the way you are.
Well, you're brilliant.
and you're courageous.
And it's a rare commodity today.
But thank you so much.
We look forward to seeing you next week, Colonel.
Okay.
Thanks so much, Judge.
Of course.
Coming up tomorrow, Friday at 4 in the afternoon, the intelligence community roundtable, and a bonus at 4.45.
I don't know where he is on the planet, but Chris will find him.
Pepe Escobar.
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