Judging Freedom - COL. Douglas Macgregor : Iran Stronger Now; Putin Takes Off the Gloves

Episode Date: May 28, 2026

COL. Douglas Macgregor : Iran Stronger Now; Putin Takes Off the GlovesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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What if it is better to perish fighting for freedom than to live as a slave? What if freedom's greatest hour of danger is now? Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for a judge, Freedom. Today is Thursday, May 28, 2006. Colonel Douglas McGregor will be with us in just a moment. Is Iran stronger now than it was in February when the war started? And is Vladimir Putin ready to take the gloves off? But first this. Don't you just cringe when people say, I told you so. Sorry, I told you, gold and silver would reap the benefits due to excessive money printing, inflation and global uncertainty. It's here. It's happened. Gold and silver have reached all-time

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Donald McGregor, welcome here, my dear friend. Thank you for, as always, accommodating our schedule. Let's start with Ukraine. How morally wrong and militarily disastrous was the Ukrainian drone attack on a female dormitory in a Russian college that killed 25 schoolgirls? It was despicable and unforgivable and unnecessary. but it's certainly not the first time. And what we've learned over the last several years is that whatever Kiev accuses Moscow of doing that is immoral

is usually evidence that they've done something and not the other way around. We can go all the way back to Bucca's. I'm sure you'll remember when the atrocity there was blamed on the Russians. Russians had nothing to do with it. It was a Ukrainian atrocity. So I think this is nothing new, but it's depressing. and its impact on Russia has been quite profound.

And what do you suspect that Foreign Minister Lavrov said to Secretary of State Rubio when he insisted on speaking with him, even though Secretary Rubio at the time was in India? This was three days after this attack. I think that both President Putin and Secretary Lavrov, individually talking to President and Trump about Iran and then subsequently with Labrov to Rubio about what happened in Ukraine are trying to make the same point. You've taken us, you have not taken us seriously. You listen to us, but you don't hear what we say.

And what we're telling you now is that we are not going to take this lying down. We're going to respond decisively. And we reserve the right to respond as we see, fit against what we think are the sources of the real problem. And the sources for these long-range drone strikes are components that are produced in the West and then shipped into Ukraine, assemble in Ukraine. So I think that's the essence of it. And I think the Russians are trying to emphasize that they're ready to act to end this war in Ukraine on their terms. Colonel, are those facilities in the West, Great Britain and Germany, fair, moral, lawful targets for the Russian military?

Well, under international law, not that anybody in the United States pays much attention to it, certainly would suggest that if you are providing critical components to a belligerent in a war, then you are a co-belligerent. So I suppose on that basis, they definitely could inflict pain on Western states. Now, the Russians obviously are not interested in widening the war. They have exercised a lot of restraint over the years. Remember, everything that happens involving these long-range drone strikes actually involves us. We've actually sent Rivet Joint and other surveillance aircraft to systematically map out every potential air and missile defense battery, every potential radar site, every potential ammunition storage site, refineries, all the targets

of interest to the Ukrainians. And we've provided that information to the Ukrainians. This, in spite of the fact that President Trump has insisted he wants an end of the war and is trying to largely disengage from it, it hasn't happened, which once again reinforces something that President Putin has said repeatedly. He's met many, many American, uh, presidents over the years and he's discovered that while many of them have good intentions, nothing they ever say or do finds a way to be translated into action, that the so-called deep state or the federal bureaucracy or the Congress continue to operate as they will.

So I think that's also what's going on right now in Russia. They've said, we've listened to this before. We're not going to put up with it anymore. Can that Russians justify attacking MI6 and C? CIA facilities in Ukraine? Oh, absolutely. In Ukraine, without a doubt, and they have. Let there be no mistake about it.

They have actually attacked those places in Ukraine. So that's already happened. They're concerned more right now at this stage about the components Ukrainians cannot build themselves that are critical to these long-range, unmanned system strikes. So I think it was last weekend, the Russians' folks. fired off an Ereshnik, maybe for the second or third time. My count may be wrong. And it was aimed at factories on the outskirts of Keev. What happens if they unleash Ereschniks on the government

buildings in Keeve? Well, I'm sure they'll level them. And I think that's coming. I think they've put everyone on fair notice. They've announced that any foreign diplomats that are operating in the area should plan to leave as soon as possible. I think that's a pretty clear indication. But I think that's the beginning of something much larger. I think we're finally going to see Russian forces on the ground move more decisively than we've seen in the last couple of years. I remember about a month or so ago you saying to me in one of our many communications, you were critical of Chancellor Merse.

What are the Germans doing? Well, that's a great question. You know, what are the Germans doing? I think the Germans are finally getting ready to change the government in Berlin. I think Matt's and his friends have gone far enough. Matt's approval ratings make Trump's position in the polls look pretty good right now. He's seen as effectively a shill for Black Rock, a front for international finance that is damaged Germany. He's seen as effectively having betrayed Germany. And more than, more Germans are coming around to understanding that this betrayal really began with Merkel. She was the one that opened the borders and admitted millions of people that are now living

inside Germany that are never going to be Germans, don't want to be Germans, and are going to have to be expelled if Germany survives as a nation state. And finally, the leader of the AFD, Alisa Vidal, who has recently spoken brilliantly in Parliament and publicly, has made it very clear that if they are installed in power, either through coalition or as a minority government, they're going to do three things. Number one, they're going to stop supplying Ukraine. Ukraine will receive no more money that Ukrainian leaders can essentially steal and move into their private bank accounts. They're not going to send any more equipment. They can be resold on the black market. So that's number one. Number two, they're going to go to Moscow.

they're going to make arrangements to buy Russian energy instead of buying our very expensive energy that comes all the way from the United States. And then finally, they're going to ask us to leave Germany. In other words, they want to expel us from the place, get us out of the country. And that's the end of NATO for all intents and purposes. And that's also something else that Germany, the AFD, really would like to see go away. Now, everybody thinks that's very radical, but actually all those things are inevitable. They make a lot of sense for the Germans right now. And frankly, they should have happened a long time ago. Is Merz re-arming the German military at an alarming rate?

No, no, no. You're not going to turn Germany into some sort of massive military machine overnight. I mean, this is the problem that Americans have. they're easily beguiled. They say, oh, no, we're going to start spending all this money. And after you spend money, you get instant military power. It takes a decade to build an army. And it would take a decade to build a new force that makes sense in this world right now

for the Germans or anybody else to do it. So that's not going to happen. But at the same time, this has put an enormous burden on German industry. You have foolish people running around saying, we're going to convert the VW factories to tank factories. Now, why you would want more tanks at this point, why you would not want other kinds of platforms other than the sort of traditional World War II tank is another question.

But I think that's not going to happen. The other thing is they've got to get industry back on its feet. They've got to get people back to work. They've got to get the foreigners that they don't want in their country out of the country. Those things are much more important. So, no, I don't subscribe to the view that Germany is going to be converted

into some sort of armed camp overnight. Absolutely not. Switching to the other hot spot, Colonel, who or what can stop Netanyahu? Well, that's a good question. Obviously, we cannot. I think that's pretty clearly demonstrated on a daily basis. Mr. Netanyahu continues to exercise veto power over anything we do and anything that President Trump wants to do.

I found it very interesting listening to some of Mr. Netanyahu. his supporters on mainstream news tried to argue that this war was all Donald Trump's idea and that he's made all the decisions and that Mr. Netanyahu really doesn't have any influence and that's perfectly obviously not true. You can go back and look at all the trips that he came last year when he came to the United States. You can look carefully at his arrival. And shortly thereafter, the war breaking out that we fought, I think, I think, I think,

people know we are not in charge of our own foreign and defense policy at all right now. Who, um, whose fault is that, that we're losing the war? Well, you got to look at the people that drummed up this dumb idea. I mean, first of all, what are we doing? What are we going to war for? What are the goals of our, our military operation? I mean, those have never really been explained to the government or explain to the American people, what we're doing is we're taking Israeli demands. And those demands are well known. No enrichment of uranium, no plutonium, no bomb grade, anything.

And frankly, no more centrifuges. Everything's got to go. That whole program's got to go. And everything that we have today inside Iran has to be removed and sent somewhere else, presumably or preferably to the United States. Secondly, we have to restrict the ballistic missile arsenal and finally stop cooperating in any way with all of Iran's traditional friends. But we've now added something else, which is interesting because it's the last thing

that we can make happen. And that is we've said that Iran cannot, under any circumstances, control the straight-of-war moves. And you know as an attorney, as a man of the legal profession, that possession is nine, ten of the law. And here's a blinding flash of the obvious. The Iranians have got it. We don't. And it's becoming pretty damned obvious that we don't have the military wherewithal to gain control of it, even though we never did have control of it. We can't get control of it. So the whole thing right now is everybody's talking about where we're on the verge of an agreement.

We've heard that how many times, seven, eight, nine times. We're hearing it again. And then we're being told that this will help end the fighting, extend the ceasefire, and then all of these hard discussions will be kicked down the road, as they say. I don't know. I don't see how we get out of any of this unless we admit that we have lost. And I don't see any evidence that anybody's willing to do that right now. Who can stop President Trump? Oh, I think the American people could. That's very obvious. The American people stopped Lyndon Johnson in 1968. Go back and look at all of the public demonstrations. And then the polling that was done, and they contacted their representatives on the hill and made it abundantly clear what they did and did not want. They wanted an end to the draft,

and they wanted an end to the Vietnam War. Lyndon Johnson heard it. He said, I'm not running for re-election. Nixon ends up being elected. Unfortunately, he listened to some of the wrong voices in his administration, Kissinger in particular, telling him that he had to do something before he left. And so we ended up in Cambodia unnecessarily. But he did eventually get us out. Now, the bad news is it took longer than it should have. But when you ask who can do what, well, the American people can do this sort of thing. But the problem is, Judge, and we've talked about this before, the American people have been largely insulated from what's happening in the Gulf. That lasts much longer.

We're going to pay a terrible price down the line. But right now, they don't feel nearly the pain that they're going to feel in the future. Last week, Trump said we're very close to a deal. It will be ceasefire for 60 days. The Strait of her moves will be open up and we're gradually going to lift the sanctions. And the holy hell rained down on him from Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz and presumably in private. from his Zionist supporters and suddenly this so-called deal was gone. Yeah. Well, I think that's going to happen again no matter what he does.

Mr. Netanyahu and his agents in the United States are not interested in peace with Iran. They want us to destroy Iran. We need to understand that. Americans need to understand that. When you ask someone, what is the goal of our military operation? Well, now we have people, people think, well, one of our objectives is to reopen the Strait of Ormuz. Well, we forget that the Strait of Ormuz was working just fine when we attacked Iran. So how do we stop that? Well, we could stop the war with Iran, and then the Strait of Ormoos will likely open, but nobody wants to go there.

So we're in an impossible situation. But there are other things happening, Judge. And this is what people don't seem to understand in Washington. Washington. Inflation is rising. It went from what, 3.28 up to 3.8%. Projections are now over the next several months that we're going to see inflation rise to 6%. Now, if you go to that high based on the Paul Volcker model of dealing with inflation, that means you raise interest rates to 7% if it's 6%, or you raise it to 6% if inflation's at 5%. But we can't do that, Judge.

if we do that what happens our entire economy will crash the financial system will implode so we cannot do those things in the meantime we're doing things that are going to make it almost inevitable that we end up crashing uh we know that president trump within the last week or so sold 17.8 million barrels of oil from the strategic petroleum reserve at a price well below market rates now this was helpful in keeping the oil prices below $110 per barrel. But we are also hearing that that strategic petroleum reserve is probably going to bottom out in early August or late July. What happens at that point? That's why I say the long-term consequences of this stupidity in the Gulf are going to strike probably at the end of the summer and in the fall.

We'll start to feel a little of it now, but that's really when it's going to hurt. And the government will be spending five, five and a half percent to borrow money. At least. And I don't think they're going to be able to do it for very long. We're not much of a credit risk anymore. And people, you know, the other thing is I was reading people looking at the global economy and understand that, you know, we managed to remove 13 million barrels of oil a day from the market. There's evidence now that thanks to some of the,

these attacks on refineries in Russia, that another 10 or 11 million barrels per day have been taken off the market. At this rate, assuming no change over the next 60 days, no significant change in the Persian Gulf and the access to the strait, you're looking at maybe a 36% shrinkage in the size of the global economy. Now, why is that significant? It's significant because during the Great Depression, the world economy shrank by 20%. Now we're talking about going to a shrinkage level of 30 to 36%. That's Great Depression. That's where the world is headed.

And we're not going to escape it. And worse, I think even worse than that, we're going to be stuck with the blame for it. Right now, you travel around the world, everybody I talk to that's traveling across Asia, in India, Africa, Latin America, everyone blames us for the closure of the strait and the catastrophic consequences for the global economy. No one is upset with Iran. Iran is seen as the victim. And obviously Israel is not exactly popular. But I think it's tragic and unfortunate that we, Americans, are blamed for this. When I asked Professor Morandi coming from Tehran what the price of gas is in downtown Tehran. You're not going to believe what he told me. Of course, he translated from

Iranian numbers and leaders to American numbers and gallons. Right. Five cents a gallon. Yeah. Well, obviously, we haven't destroyed all of their refineries yet. No, no, apparently we haven't. So there's a dilemma here. I mean, are the Iranian U.S. negotiations based on reality, because the Iranians will never agree to a deal that fails to restrain Israel, and Trump can't restrain Israel. So where are they going? Well, it appears that the Israelis have decided that this is a good time to press ahead in southern Lebanon, as well as in Gaza and elsewhere. And maybe in Turkey and Egypt, as you pointed out to me earlier today.

Yeah, we need to go to that next. But I mean, right now, they're clearly in the belief that while we're distracted by the Persian Gulf, they're going to try and finish up everything they want to do elsewhere. If you're an Iranian and you look at all of this, what incentive do you have to sign up for anything that we put in front of them? Where is the evidence that we will stick to any agreement? where is the evidence that another president, even if Trump is removed, that the next one who comes along will be trustworthy? What can you expect from the current Congress? So I think the Iranians are in a position where they're going to sit there, they're going to

entertain whatever we send to them, but they're not going to budge on the basic points that they've made because they see no reason why they should, because they just don't see any evidence that will be truthful and we'll carry through in any promises that we make. So I think that's just an insurmountable problem. Right. Jonathan Pollard, the American-born Israeli spy, spy for Israel against the United States. He was a civilian employee of the Navy,

a sentence commuted by President Trump, flown in a private jet by Sheldon Adelson out of the country, greeted in Tel Aviv personally by Prime Minister Netanyahu, now running for the Knesset in Prime Minister Netanyahu's party, recently said that once the Israelis finish with Lebanon, they will set their military sites on Egypt and Turkey. Now, A, does that surprise you? B, is it insane? Turkey has a sophisticated military many times the Israelis. Does it not? Oh, yes, very much so. In fact, Turkey is the leading power, military power in the region.

I think the Iranians would certainly agree to that assessment as well. If you look at Iran, Iran is almost entirely defensive in its orientation. The Turks have tremendous offensive striking power. They also have a martial culture, much more martial in its content than anything we've seen in Iran. You know, Judge, it's tempting to say, oh, well, this holler, he's insane. He can't be serious. No, he's quite serious. And I think we have to understand that this is the view held by Mr. Netanyahu, by Gavir, by Smotrich, and large numbers of others, and also by their agents in the United States, the billionaires who put Trump into the White House. These people absolutely

are committed to what he outlined. Now, this is not of interest to us in the United States. This is not a vital strategic goal for us. We are not interested in seeing a war breakout in the Eastern Mediterranean with the Turks that could easily bring in the Greeks and ultimately other European powers. I don't think the Russians are interested in seeing this happen. We certainly don't want to see Egypt dragged into this war. Egypt has got an enormous problem right now. just trying to feed its own population and power its own power grid. So what should we make of it? I think we should take it on face value.

I think we have to understand that, yes, from our standpoint, this is Looney Tunes. But this is what the people who are running the show in Israel believe. And the people running the show in Israel are currently running us. They're in charge. armed forces are committed to their goals and strategic objectives. Here's someone else who takes this very seriously what Jonathan Pollard said. And that's the president of Turkey. Chris, cut number 11. With the help of God and by his divine will, I firmly believe that this oppressive tyrant

known as Netanyahu will very soon be forced to learn the profound and necessary lesson that he so rightfully deserves from the collective strength and unity of the Muslims across the entire world. We are all looking forward with great anticipation to the moment, which we hope will arrive very soon, when we will finally be able to witness this new stance being put into practice for everyone to see. I know sometimes his bark is worse than his bite, but it sounds pretty serious to me, especially in light of what Pollard said, and your understanding that Pollard is serious, and this is a view embraced by the Netanyahu government. Yes, and I think Mr. Erdogan is certainly speaking for large numbers of Turks,

easily the majority, but the problem is he has a credibility to. He, on one hand, has continued to sell oil and food and other things to the Israelis, while the Israelis have simultaneously annihilated people in Gaza and southern Lebanon and attack people in Iran. So if you're a Turk right now, you look at that, you listen to it, and you say, yes, that's correct. We all agree with that. But Mr. Erdogan, what have you done? And the answer is Mr. Erdogan hasn't done much of anything. Colonel, thank you very much, my dear friend.

dangerous and dark times across the world and domestically, but your analysis always sheds a little light on the truth and on our understanding. All right, Judge. Thanks very much. Thank you. All the best. We'll see you again soon. Coming up tomorrow Friday at 9 in the morning, Professor Jeffrey Sachs

at 4 in the afternoon, the Intelligence Community Roundtable with special guest Scott Ritter. So Larry Johnson, Ray McGovern, and Scott Ritter. Justice Napolitano for Judging Freedom.