Judging Freedom - COL. Douglas Macgregor : Is China a Danger to the US?

Episode Date: May 7, 2026

COL. Douglas Macgregor : Is China a Danger to the US?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Undeclared wars are commonplace. Pragically, our government engages in preemptive war, otherwise known as aggression with no complaints from the American people. Sadly, we have become accustomed to living with the illegitimate use of force by government. To develop a truly free society, the issue of initiating force must be understood and rejected. What if sometimes to love your country you had to alter or abolish the government? Jefferson was right? What if that government is best, which governs least? What if it is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong? 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 judging freedom. Today is Thursday, May 7, 2006, Colonel Douglas McGregor joins us now. Colonel, always a pleasure. My dear friend, thank you for joining us. I do want to spend some time asking you for your analysis. You just wrote about this, about the movement of wealth and power toward the east. But before we get to China today, some questions on Iran, please.

It appears that the United States has been totally humiliated. In its two Hollywood-sounding projects, Epic Fury and Operation Freedom, neither has succeeded. It appears both have been canceled. Do you agree? Yeah, I think so. And I think the tragedy here is that this entire episode in the history of the United States was begun and launched without any serious analysis

and thinking about all the possible branches and sequels of their plan, of what could happen, and instead we planned for the beginning on instant victory or rapid conclusion to our satisfaction. You know, we've talked about this a little bit in the past, Judge, and General Kane's name comes up, and people want to impute all sorts of things to him, but I think when General Kane was hired and told that

he would be promoted to four stars and be the chairman, the senior military advisor to President Trump. I think he understood pretty clearly what would ultimately happen. I don't think there was any mystery about the inevitability of a war with Iran. We forget that General Kane was well known to the Kushner's, especially I guess it's Kushner's brother who was running a hedge fund where he was on the board of the fund. So I don't think there was a serious, examination of all the possible outcomes. I think the one outcome that they expected was the last one that they were going to get. So at this point, President Trump is going to try and I think postpone the inevitable as long as possible, and the inevitable is failure and the admission of failure.

The one thing that they apparently never even thought about, I mean, they never got regime changed. They never got to destroy, dismantle, or steal the, nuclear-enriched material. They never got to degrade Iran's ballistic missiles. Those are three steadfast goals that they articulated at various times, along with their colleagues in Tel Aviv, but they probably never expected the Strait of Hormuz mess. Who controls Hormuz now? The U.S. or the Iranians? The Iranians, obviously control it. and there was never an understanding of how that would be achieved.

We have more than our share of what I would call late 19th century, early 20th century thinkers in Washington and in military strategy in general. And I think they thought that to control the street of Hormuz, you would have to have troops guarding it, artillery positioned, near it, and all this kind of business. They never understood this revolutionary change in military affairs that was demonstrated pretty conclusively in Ukraine by the Russians.

This thing that I call ISR strike, intelligence surveillance reconnaissance assets in space and above you overhead, linked to all of these various weapon systems, missile systems of all types and kinds, all spread out over many hundreds of miles in Iran, very difficult to find. If you found them, very difficult to attack them and the underground facilities where they are stored. I don't think any of those things were considered. And what they're now finding out is that in addition to having grossly underestimated the enemy, who has indeed suffered but is quite willing to suffer longer in order to win this conflict, you can print money, but you can't print energy and materials.

You can't print the diesel that moves your trucks. You can't print the fertilizer that grows your crops, and you certainly can't print the natural gas that powers your factories. None of that was considered. And we're in a lot of trouble. And what we've set in motion in terms of an economic crisis is global. It's going to hit us very hard in the months ahead. And it's going to hit the rest of the world even harder to the point where we're going to see famine in many areas of Africa and Asia.

I mean, and not to give you heartburn, but this is the type of nonsense that is whispered into the presidency here when they share a golf course. card together. Chris number 13. We have it. This thing is over to the American people. I know gas prices are high and I know we're suffering right now, but you pay now, you pay later against thugs like Iran. They tried to get a nuclear weapon, and if you don't believe that, you shouldn't be allowed to drive in your hometown. Donald Trump stopped Iran from having eight to ten nuclear weapons by bombing their enrichment facilities. God bless you, President Trump. We were weeks away from a nuclear-armed Iran. No more. Everything has been obliterated. Their economy is in chatter, is in tatters, their military has been decimated. There's more to do. If we can control the

straits, checkmate against Iran, lockade plus, armed the people. And to our allies throughout the world who depend on the Strait of Hormuz more than we do, get off your ass and help us. Well, this is about the worst I've ever heard him. deception and self-delusion are not a good foundation for the exercise of military power in any setting and of course there are several problems one of we've never had a coherent strategic framework as you pointed out at the beginning the goals were never really realistic we didn't go through the process of establishing what the attainable political military goal was we never understood the limits of our power of our military power we didn't look at iran

honestly, its size, its population, its capabilities. We grossly underestimated the Iranians. I think we can attribute a lot of that to Israel. And we marched headlong into something at the behest of Israel. All of this goes back to Israel. We have, you know, contrary to what he is saying, there is no existential threat to us from Iran. There never was.

Iran is not the leading state sponsor of terror. That's a lie. You know, we continue to repeat these lies to the point of absurdity. I think the Americans are beginning to figure this out, but not until the pain gets worse. And I think a lot of people don't understand that the pain is going to get a lot worse. It's not just rises in, you know, gas prices, as we were discussing earlier. This involves food, feedstocks, fuel, all kinds of fuel, you know, jet fuel. deal right now is top $250 a barrel in Singapore. Diesel is extraordinarily expensive and in short supply.

70 plus percent of our farmers can't afford to buy fertilizer. About 47, 48 percent of them are declaring backcropsy. This is insane. And there's no understanding that the damage we've done will take a long time from which to recover. And, you know, our so-called friends in Eliz in the Gulf, have discovered we can't protect them not from this isr strike capability and so they're walking away from us which is what's happened with saudi arabia and kuwait and you know our friend larry johnson i think put it well you know if you're trying to follow where we're headed and what's happening and what the goals are the strategic goals you're going to develop a severe case of whiplash all you had to do is listen to the latest from secretary rubia who says what we really want

is to open the Gulf. Well, that's the way it was until we started the war. Right, right. This is insane. It's bizarre. And we need to talk about China and we need to talk about Russia because China especially is the principal beneficiary of our suicidal policies. Well, here's, I want you to compare what Senator Graham said to what former director of counter television, Joe Kent just told my friend and former colleague, Megan Kelly. You may recall when Tulsi Gabbard, Joe Kent's former boss, testified under oath that it was the unanimous agreement of the American intelligence services that Iran was not building and was nowhere near

and could not develop a nuclear weapon. The president dismissed it and said, I don't care what she said. I believe they were because it was listening to the Israelis. Well, here's Joe with a little bit more, a little bit more specificity, and I think you'll appreciate this, Colonel, how difficult it is to get all intelligence agencies, including the defense intelligence agency, to agree on the same thing. Chris? So getting the 18 intelligence agencies to agree on anything, it's very challenging. It is a very laborious and sometimes a very intense process of coordination and having people argue their cases, when you have the 18 intelligence agencies saying, without a doubt that Iran is not

working towards a nuclear weapon and the Defense Intelligence Agency doing battle damage assessment, which is what the DIA really specializes in, is having these military-based assessments, that's what I'm going to go with. Being influenced by the IAEA or by another government, Israel in this case, saying like, oh no, even though you conducted Midnight Hammer and your 18 intelligence agencies say that their nuclear capability is gone, They're still somehow digging out from the rubble and they're going to be able to assemble 10 bombs in two weeks. Again, sorry, I'm going with what the director of national intelligence said. And she's saying that based on the research and the analysis and the rigorous debate of 18 intelligence agencies.

And his most recent insult to the Pope, which was yesterday, apparently President Trump rejects this and still thinks that the Iranians have or. are capable of having or are close to constructing nuclear weapons? Well, I'm not surprised. You know, he's going to go home with the date that brought him to the dance. The date is Israel. And the billionaires that put him into office are the principal backers of the Israel lobby. He would not be where he is. Now, there's another possibility.

I have absolutely no idea if this is valid or not. but they may well have something on President Trump that goes back into the Epstein drama. I have no idea. I know that he's always feared certain things, and one of those is the Israel lobby. So there's more here, and I imagine that in the months ahead,

we're going to learn a lot more. My view right now is that President Trump has this fundamental belief in the utility of American military, military power to achieve the results he wants from U.S. foreign policy. That's not right. That doesn't make any sense. And so he's relied so heavily on that. He's also banked on it with more than a little arrogance and self-importance to the point that

people are sick of him. Now, I'm not talking about the die-hard Maga people, but I'm talking about the rest of the world. He's supposed to go to China next week. and if I were advising him, I would tell him to develop a little bit of humility and cordiality in his dealings with the Chinese, because if he thinks he's going to get them to do anything that he wants and he can threaten them, he's lost his mind. That's not going to work.

It's going to have any opposite effect. I have one or two more questions for you, and then I want to spend some time on China. China, you have often spoken admirably about some of the IDF officers with whom you worked when you were on. active duty as being very professional. Question, do the professionals around Prime Minister Netanyahu and do the professionals, whether it's General Kane or whoever else, and I'm not talking about Heggseth, I'm talking about professional, high-ranking military

around the president understand that more bombing is not going to bring them what they want. That may something, may be something that privately, the Israeli leadership understands, but they won't accept it. And I think we have to come to terms with the reality that much like American presidents, Israeli prime ministers get the generals they want. And I think President Trump has the generals that he wants. And the generals he wants are the ones he's prepared to listen to.

Now that's always disastrous, you know. Years ago, after we went through the Kosovo Air campaign, a four-star German German General, who was the chief of staff at the Supreme Headquarters of the Light Powers Europe, took me aside in his office after we'd had a meeting. And he said, I could tell you we're very upset about something that happened because a certain German general staff officer that was in the meeting had contradicted me. And he said, I know that in your military establishment, subordinate officers cannot contradict their superiors.

But he said, you know, we've gone back to the Prussian tradition where, the general staff officer is obliged to tell the truth and that means to say what he really believes. You know, we had the experience of sycophants of people that would tell the leadership whatever it wanted to hear. We're not going to go down that road ever again. Who said this to you? It's a German force store. Wow. And my admiration for him, of course, skyrocketed at that point. And he was very critical of the way we do business in the American military, but he was is right. We have a very sycophantic culture. I used to refer to audiences listening to generals as headbangers because that the general said, well, my view is X, Y, and Z. And all the headbangers,

the audience would go, yes, yes, right. And I had the experience of being asked point blank in front of a room of 50 officers by a three-star. Well, McCrigger, I hear what you say. Now, why do you think what you do? And they all immediately looked at me and said, well, this is the end of McCrigger. So I told him what I thought, explained it. And he then said, well, I agree with you, McCrigger. Well, suddenly all the headbangers looked at the general and went.

Somehow, it's a great story. Somehow I'm not surprised. Yeah. So I think that's the problem. And Joe Kent, you know, he was in the Army. I'm sure if he brought him in, he'd say something similar. and it doesn't matter what you say if the boss doesn't want to hear it. Right.

And that means that President Trump is the architect of his own disaster. And I think his administration is entropic. I think his presidency is at very high risk of going out of business before the end of the year. You have written persuasively and eloquently about the movement of wealth and power toward China. And there are various aspects to this. But let's start with the president's trip. What cards does he have to play with President Xi? I don't think he has any, but maybe you know of some.

Well, they're humble cards. Wait a minute. We're talking about Donald Trump and authority in the same sentence. Well, I mean, you know, the Chinese will be polite in public, but behind closed doors, if he goes in there and says, well, I want you to help me do X, Y, and Z. I want you to tell the Iranians or something, they're going to burst out laughing in his face. You know, they could have told him the same thing

that you and I and so many others that you talk to, like Larry Wilkerson and Karen and Larry Johnson and so forth, all said the same thing. You know, this is a dead end. This military operation makes no sense. I laugh because now I see all sorts of people. They've got Professor Pape who's out there, and a lot of ours are,

there's never been a successful air and missile. campaign to do blah, blah, well, gee, really? That's true. And I'm sure that that was mentioned. There's no question in my mind, but what that came up. And the problem is that it doesn't matter because President Trump, like so many leaders of so many countries through history, had selective hearing. And so now he's faced with national humiliation at best. International humiliation is a certainty.

he's created the conditions for a global depression in much of the global south also in Europe we're headed into a very severe recession it doesn't matter whether you listen to peter schiff or ray dalio or any anybody out there they're all telling the same things everything has been mismanaged and i think we're going to go into some very dark territory now because at some point all of this is going to catch up with the american people the american people you know I laughed when I heard Senator Lindsey Graham say, well, you know, a little bit of pain is a small price to pay. Well, he's not feeling any pain. But let me tell you, the people in South Carolina, they're going to feel some and they're going to feel a lot in the months ahead.

Because you can't just reverse all of this. You know, somebody pointed out to me the other day, during COVID, which that year of lockdowns, we drained 50% of the oil out of our strategic petroleum reserve. And that's with almost no demand, Judge. Right now, we're going to hit bottom, they think, in July. And people in Washington say, oh, no, no, no, that won't happen. Well, how many times we heard that before? You know, you're on, we're the Trump, Trump is the captain of the Titanic.

He deliberately struck the iceberg. The ship is sinking and he's trying to convince everybody, everything's just fine. See, the lights are still on. This isn't going to work. And I'll tell you what, the Chinese. They're restricting access right now to much of the, all of the rare earths and many of the things that our economy needs. This is not an accident. They're tightening their grip on trade.

They're expanding export controls on critical minerals. They're reinforcing their own supply chains. Trump is finding out that military power is usually not a good choice to solve most of your problems. It's probably the least best option on any given day, particularly in the world we live in today, because we really are so dependent on so many other countries. Were you surprised when the Chinese government basically said to the president, go take a hike on your sanctions? No, not at all.

In fact, if you know what the Chinese are up to, I mean, they said their companies won't abide by any of our sanctions. They said private refiners, you know, that are linked to Iranian oil, are going to continue to do business. they said their heavyweight hangly petrochemical refinery company is going to operate and they don't give a damn what we think about it. This is a sea change because even on the tariffs, which were, I thought, unnecessarily harsh and offensive, not very well targeted.

There was no strategic rationale. I mean, we hit all of our friends. It's ridiculous. You don't attack your friends. But the Chinese have been more. than accommodating to us, but we deprive them of access to energy. Now, they are well-stocked. They have a large strategic reserve, and they have stockpiled many things, including fertilizer.

They've got, they're in a better position than almost anybody. But they're not going to go through this with us anymore. And now we've exposed the lack of capability that we have. You know, it took us $70 billion in several weeks to exhaust our arsenal of exhaustion, of exotic munitions, precision guided weapons. We're now entirely dependent on our overhead base surveillance and it's just neutralized by the opponents. So the bottom line is China sees us for what we are.

We're hot air. And what is Trump like to say? Everyone that disagrees with him is low IQ. I think the Chinese are looking at us say that IQs in Washington and the White House have dropped precipitously. And to add to all of this, the Chinese are no longer buying our debt. What's that going to do the cost of American debt? Oh, that's not a problem.

Judge, that's not a problem. Come on now. We have ways around that. And that's what our friend Bessent is talking about. There is no way around that. It's not just China. The Japanese are beginning to do the same thing because they're trying to defend the yen. and they're in a mess.

We're very vulnerable right now. How do we suppress interest rates much longer? What do we do about inflation? Where do we get cheap credit when the interest rates rise? The bond interests or yields are rising. How do you stop 5%? Everybody I know tells me the same thing. When the 10-year treasury hits 5%, we're finished.

We can't pay the interest on the debt. And we've known this for a long. long time. This is not a newsflash. Yet what have we done? We've paid no attention to it. We've said, no, no, no, you don't understand modern economics. Debt doesn't matter. Well, I think we're all going to get an education very shortly and find out that debt does matter. And Project Freedom is now becoming Project Nowhere. And Donald Trump doesn't seem to understand that he is accelerating the accumulation of power and wealth in the East. Oh, no, not at all.

And, you know, from my standpoint, I never thought in my lifetime that China would end up being a safe haven for the world's wealth. But if you have to make a choice now, whether you're in Nicaragua or Italy or Thailand or Vietnam, wherever you are, you have to make a choice between putting your money in our banks or putting your money in Chinese banks, you're going to go to China. There's no question about it. Why? Well, what have we done? We've demonstrated that if you put money in our banks, we'll do whatever the hell we want with it. And if we decide that you can't have access to it, what are you going to do? You can't do anything.

So people are migrating in the direction of China as a more reliable strategic partner in that department than we are. And then you recognize that China once again has become what it was for a couple of thousand years, which is really the workshop of the world. They're producing everything faster, better than we can. Their electric vehicles are outperforming everything we have. People are going down to Mexico to buy Chinese electric vehicles and then driving them north into the United States because they're so effective, reliable performers.

There are people in Congress trying to figure out how they stop us, that is, American citizens, from buying electric vehicles in Mexico and driving them north. You can't make this stuff up, but I think we've hit a point similar to 1492. 1492 is a watershed year, not simply because Columbus stumbled on to the northern hemisphere and what we today call North America and the Caribbean. It became a watershed because suddenly trade shifted away from China and India that had been funneling through Central Asia and Turkey to Europe and now move towards.

us. So we were able to harness gold, silver, and all the things that matter, even food, everything that you could think of that was developing in the Western world in the Western hemisphere. And that made us rich and powerful. When I say us, I'm talking principles about the European powers. And we developed the technology that helped us be dominant. Well, everything is now switching. That sort of wave of change is moving in the direction. of China in Southeast Asia, towards Japan, towards Korea, and towards India. And I don't see this reversing any time soon. And we're not doing what we need to do.

We're not looking at what has to happen inside our own country. Boy, how I wish they would listen to you. One last question back to Iran before we finish. What will happen to American bases in the Gulf states and to Israel if after he returns from Beijing, Trump starts bombing again. Well, if he restarts this, then it will be a decade before anything recovers in the Gulf, but that recovery will not involve us. We will never go back to the Gulf.

We're not going to rebuild these bases that the Iranians have obliterated. The person or the nation that will go back in with cash, with the ability to invest and change and development, will be China. We already saw the Chinese intervene successfully to try and broker a new relationship between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Iran is a Chinese ally. Iran is a Russian a lie. Those things are real. Everybody knows that. And the Russians and the Chinese are going to step into the vacuum. They're going to provide what we can. But can't. But the thing that they won't do is I don't think they'll promise to defend everybody to the death and want to station their forces in the region. That's not in China's nature. The Chinese don't want to do that. The Chinese are really all about

markets and business. They will do everything they can to develop that. And they're not going to intervene or interrupt or disrupt the internal affairs of any of the states. You know, a friend of mine was in Kenya and then he spent a lot of time in other African states and got very frustrated because the Chinese were always successful in outbidding and outperforming us. We would go in and promise to do things, and ultimately the Africans would pick the Chinese. And he said the basic reason is that we go into a country and we say, well, we're happy to do this and this and this.

However, you have to change your human rights record. You have to alter your political system. You're insufficiently democratic. The Chinese show up and say, how you govern yourselves is your affair. It's your business. We just want to do business. with you. That makes a huge difference.

There's one other thing before we end this that I think is important for your audience to understand. Back in 1941, 42, as soon as the war really got off the ground and we entered into it, we and the Canadians, our friends, were both very anxious to land in France during the Second World War. We wanted to land in France in 1942. We and the Canadians had to not yet fought the Germans. We didn't know what we were dealing with. And the British became very frustrated with us. And field marshal Montgomery at that point, it was not yet a field marshal. He was commanding the forces that were on home territory. He finally said, I think we should just let the Canadians who are the most aggressive go ahead and make a landing. And somebody said,

well, you've said, if they do that, they'll all be killed. He said, yeah, I know, I'd like to stop it, but they won't listen. And they're going to ultimately get what they want anyway. Well, they did. And on the 19th of August, 1942, the Ukrainians, or excuse me, the Canadians launched a raid. It was called the DEP raid. It had over 6,000 men involved, ships, artillery tanks, and everything else. The Germans annihilated it. Lots of people were killed. Lots of people were taken prisoner. And again, the British had said, don't do this. We're not ready for it. We can't do it. We need to look for a different opportunity. Well, I think there were people that probably told, President Trump the same thing. Look, we can't really do what you want to Iran. There's got to be another way if you want to hold Iran accountable for all the terrible things you're accusing them of. But military power is not the right answer, certainly not what we have. But he wouldn't listen. And so we have experienced the equivalent of being annihilated as the Canadians were at Dieppe in 1942. It's tragic to say it, but I think this administration is finished. He's not going to

recover from this. The rest of the world is going to suffer. We're going to suffer. And people are going to be looking for someone to blame. And by the way, he's not alone, but he'll end up being the principal stuck-e for this. When I say he's not alone, you and I sat there and watched the State of Union speech that he gave. And when he mentioned, we're going to stop Iran from never having a nuclear weapon. Everybody gave him a standing ovation. Right. So Congress is just as culpable. They'll eventually find their way to accountability too. But the first man who will be held accountable is Trump. And I think the billionaires that elected him are going to hold a meeting.

And they're going to probably tell the cabinet it's time for change. And they'll want to bring in their second candidate, J.D. Vance. The question is, can J.D. Vance step into the crisis that we're going to see unfold over the months ahead and make any difference? Very much open to debate. And he's been part of this in a very dramatic and serious way. Everybody who's been in this administration is going to suffer for this. Colonel McGregor, a truly brilliant and courageous analysis. Thank you very much, my dear friend.

Thank you for allowing the conversation to cover the gamut of what needs to be covered. Truly and deeply appreciated, my dear friend. All the best to you. Thanks, Judge. Thank you. It was a truly gift. brilliant and courageous analysis. More of this. If you're watching us live in 27 minutes at 2 o'clock Colonel Larry Wilkerson, at 3 o'clock, the golden boy, Max Blumenthal, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.