Judging Freedom - COL. Douglas Macgregor : Ukraine and European War Fantasies.

Episode Date: December 17, 2025

COL. Douglas Macgregor : Ukraine and European War Fantasies.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Thank you. Thank you. Hi, everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Wednesday, December 17, 2025. Colonel Douglas McGregor joins us now. Colonel McGregor, a pleasure, as always, thanks for accommodating my schedule. I want to spend some time with you on the crazy ideas that the Europeans have in conjunction with Vladimir Zelensky for ending the special military operation in Ukraine.

But first to breaking news, about an hour ago during my interview with Tucker Carlson, he informed me that a member of Congress informed him that President Trump has informed Congress that tonight at 9 o'clock Eastern, he will announce the commencement of hostilities against Venezuela. We'll play the clip. It's not very long. Here's my question, and you'll see how it developed into Tucker Carlson. Carlson's answer. Is Trump going to start a war in Venezuela?

I don't know. I don't know when this program airs, the one that we're on right now. This thing is we're live now. And then it'll be posted immediately. So right now, I don't know the answer. I certainly on the phone a lot about it. I have no power. I'm a podcaster, but I'm very interested. And so here's what I know so far, which is that members of Congress were briefed yesterday, that a war is coming, and it'll be announced in the address to the nation tonight at 9 o'clock by the president. Who knows, by the way, if that will actually happen, I don't know.

And I never want to overstate what I know, which is pretty limited in general. But a member of Congress told me that this morning. Will American national security be enhanced by? a war against Venezuela? No, and it doesn't mean that Christmas is coming early for the American people either. What we're seeing is the streamlining of the process. Congress is essentially cut out of the discussion. I have to fault Congress for that, frankly.

The president, given the nature of constitutional law, can only act within the constraints that Congress imposes on it when it comes to the use of American military. military power. And as we've discussed in the past, they've been reluctant to do anything. The War Powers Act has never been, you know, executed or employed. And now we're going to let the man declare war. But in fairness, by implementing a blockade, a naval blockade, he's effectively said, we're at war with Venezuela. That's considered under international law to be an act of war, correct judge yes yes it is an act of war particularly in this case um because it would effectively starve the nation what about what about china doesn't china buy about 80 or 90 percent of its

oil from venezuela well i wouldn't say that much but certainly a substantial portion they have an interest in what happens in venezuela but the chinese are not stupid We're prepared to impale ourselves on Taiwan, which is six, seven thousand miles away from our home base in the United States. The Chinese are not going to impale themselves on Venezuela for the same reason. They know this is too far. They can't intervene effectively and support anything. Now, will they provide any kind of relief or help to Venezuela? Probably something.

But I think the Russians are the ones that could do some things. But again, you know, it's a question for President Putin thus far. Putin has always acted very deliberately and cautiously. And I don't think he wants a war with the United States over Venezuela. Is President Trump acting with deliberation and caution? Sorry, I almost made you spill your sleeve. I guess in light of Susie Wiles' interesting interview, we should not necessarily include the words deliberate or cautious at any description of President Trump.

He obviously doesn't see the need to really consult with anyone to explain anything. Maybe he'll explain tonight when he speaks, assuming that happens, what it's all about. But, you know, again, I go back to Congress. Where is Congress? Well, who controls Congress? I think the same billionaires that are largely setting up and supporting Trump or also ultimately dragging Congress in whatever direction they want to go. And presumably they too want war with Venezuela. What is to be gained for the United States? Even if everything Donald Trump says is true.

Nicholas Maduro is the head of a drug cartel masquerading as the president of Venezuela. He's not the legitimate president of Venezuela. The country engages in human trafficking and murder. Even if all this is true, and almost all of it is defied by the administration's own drug enforcement administration website, what does the U.S. gain by this? Strategically, I don't see that we're going to gain much of anything, but you have to keep the following in mind. On the one hand, I regard turning to the use of military power to wage war against another nation state as the last. possible resort. It's the last thing you want to do, because even under the best of circumstances, assuming that you have absolute unchallenged military supremacy in a whole range of important

categories, the problem with war is that everything that can go wrong usually does. You're not only fighting the enemy, you're fighting all the things that can go wrong with you on your side, the accidents, the misinterpretations, the orders that. that don't reach the right place in point in time and space. So, you know, from my vantage point, war, direct, open war is the last possible option that you want to embrace. Now, on the other side, because I've taken some time

and I've had several people send me these things, the amount of fiction surrounding all of this is really stunning. I mean, we're way beyond conspiracy theories. We have people spitting out this story that, uh, striking Venezuela will collapse all of the drug cartels and criminal organizations all across Latin America. Then it will cause Cuba to implode, which seems to be very important to Secretary of

State Rubio, and will profoundly undermine all of the problems that we have in Mexico, Honduras, Nicaragua, and so forth. Obviously, I think that's a lot of nonsense. That's not to say that there may be some connectivity in those areas. But truthfully, what we're doing is going to enrage Latin America. It's going to mobilize millions and millions of people in Latin America against us. And as we've discussed before, we're not terribly popular as it is just based on our historical record down there. This is going to make it all infinitely worse. And I don't know what the rest of the world says because they're already treating us as a sort of crazy person in the neighborhood. You know, You always had somebody in the neighborhood that everybody thought was a little nuts and you avoided him.

And that person lived in the house with the doors shut and the shades pulled down. And, you know, you're a child growing up to, oh, don't go over there. That's crazy so-and-so. We're already sort of in that category as it is. This is only going to make it much worse. If the Secretary of Defense were to ask your advice, whether the 20,000 troops in Puerto Rico and aboard the ships outside of Venezuela should storm the beaches? What would you tell him? Well, obviously, I would have already told the president that I don't see an upside strategically

for the United States or for him by doing these things. And I would have urged alternative approaches that don't involve the use of massive American conventional military power. But if you put me in a position, I wouldn't send very many troops in under any circumstances. But keep in mind, at least according to what I've heard. And I know Tucker says, someone in Congress told him this, and I'm sure that's probably true. Best I can say is that people in the Department of Defense that I know have told me that those soldiers up in Puerto Rico, up to 15, 16,000 there. and potentially the Marines further south in the Navy down in the Caribbean basin

will end up being what they call a stabilization force. Well, this presumes that you get a coup, and all of this rests on the assumption that you can remove Maduro with a combination of CIA mercenaries and people inside Venezuela who will rise up against Maduro. Well, what if that doesn't happen?

What did the troops become? Are they now an invasion force? If they're invading, what are they going to seize? What are they going to try and control? You remember, we've talked often about the size of this place. You know, it's much larger than Vietnam. It's a very confusing environment. It's triple canopy jungle and mountains.

It's roughly the size of Austria, Germany, and France combined. Its population ranges between 28.5 and 29.9 million, depending upon whomever you want to consult. This is a nightmare. It's a nightmare to manage. I cannot imagine what the key objectives are, and I cannot imagine that someone has said they are attainable. What is attainable?

That's always the question. Don't tell me what you want. Tell me what you think the broad purpose is. I'll tell you what I think is attainable. And right now, with the force that we have, the only thing that you can achieve down there is a lot of destruction. That you can achieve. But beyond that, I don't know.

Are the Israelis encouraging this invasion? Well, I don't know if the Israelis are. Certainly, Mr. Netanyahu has made some rumblings recently about how delighted he would be if Mrs. Machado took over. Remember, she promised to instantly move the Venezuelan embassy to Jerusalem. But again, I think we have to look at the people that have been contributing all of the money

that helped to elect and ultimately installed President Trump in the White House and swung Congress in the direction it's headed right now. And those billionaires, if you will, are largely supportive of intervention in Venezuela. And now maybe they think, once again, that they can collateralize the natural resources down there. Remember that Mrs. Machado's principal virtue from the standpoint of the Trump administration is her readiness to effectively turn over all of the natural resources in Venezuela to our exploitation. And I assume that also means that she will cooperate with us to throw the Chinese and Russian investors who are down in Venezuela.

They're not very many. They're pretty modest, frankly. But they do have some investments in the country and drive them out. Because the subtext of everything that's happening is that we're driving out the Chinese and the Russian. We're putting them on notice that they need to get completely out of our hemisphere largely dominated. Well, that's an interesting mission. I don't know that we have to invade the place to achieve that. I mean, I've always said from the beginning, if you want to cut a deal with Maduro

and he wants to let our oil engineers, the people that run that industry in the United States back into his country, I think we're extremely competitive. We have the best deep drilling oil engineers in the world. We have exactly what's required down there to get the entire oil industry back up and on its feet. I don't think the Chinese or the Russians can really compete with that over time. But no one seems to be interested in that aspect. They just want to find a way to drive Russia, drive China out of the hemisphere. I'm not sure this will work, but that's another goal that seems to be very important to the president.

Colonel, yesterday in Berlin at a meeting of negotiators involving Germany, Great Britain, France, and the United States, along with Vladimir Zelensky, German Chancellor Mertz announced a ceasefire plan. Now, the first word should tell you it's not going to wash, but it goes downhill from there. that includes the Ukrainian retention of the now Russian occupied lands, a neutral Ukraine, but European troops physically present in it. When he made this announcement, the American delegation remained mute as if they were in agreement. But Donald Trump changed his mind. Is this some kind of a way to intimidate in Trump's mind to intimidate President Putin? It's very hard to understand what is actually in the president's mind on these matters. Remember, we still sanction the two largest oil production firms in Russia, Rosenft, and I forgot

the other name. Those sanctions are still in place, and they're designed to harm Russia. So for all the talk and the discussions have been held with the Russian, certainly since January and February and March, there has been no fun. fundamental change in the direction of U.S. policy. Our policy today is largely indistinguishable from the policy followed by Biden, despite the fact that on many occasions President Trump has indicated a desire to change that. It hasn't changed. So I think with President Trump, you have to look at what happens, what is done, as opposed to what is said. And so right now,

I think you have to assume that President Trump may not have 100% endorsed it, but he's certainly not going to stop it. And the problem with that, as you know, Judge, first of all, bats and the rest of these people are living in a fantasy world. But what's really dangerous about this is that the Russians are compelled to at least take it somewhat seriously. In other words, they have to assume that this lunatic fringe that is currently governing Europe is genuinely interested in waging war.

And that's why they've just brought in hundreds of thousands of additional Russian citizens to serve in the armed forces, particularly in the army. It's why their manufacturing base continues to turn out exquisite missile and rocketry weapons. It's why their ground force trains rigorously and is prepared, frankly, to go and do whatever President Putin tells them. And his answer to them, by the way, is very straightforward. If we can't find a diplomatic way forward, then we will do so militarily. And I think the Europeans need to take that very, very seriously.

Yesterday, the United States Senate spent a few hours debating a proposal offered by, among others, the senior senator from South Carolina, to declare Russia a state sponsor of terrorism. A number of senators were against this, but the most articulate of them was Senator Randpole. This is very frustrating because his arguments seem to fall on deaf ears. But here he is yesterday, Chris, cut number eight. The Washington establishment already succeeded in its foolish designation of drug cartels in the Western Hemisphere as terrorist organizations, and now we're conducting extrajudicial killings of individuals seemingly every day with no congressional authorization or oversight.

What's next? Are we going to commit extrajudicial executions of Russians? Once they're designated as state sponsors of terrorism, that's exactly what we're doing in Venezuela. They say, well, we're just not killing any drug dealers. We're killing drug dealers who are terrorists. That sort of begs the question when they released a narco-terrorist who'd been in prison for 45 years, the former president of Honduras, Hernandez. Oh, well, why is he not a narco-terrorist? Oh, because we name who the narco-terrorists is. The guys were killing in the boats, they're narco-terrorists.

The guy convicted and sent to prison for 45 years, the former president of Honduras, he's not a narco-terrorist. But the justification for killing the people in the boats who are not armed, there's been no evidence presented that anybody in these boats is armed. We're killing unarmed people because we call them narco-terrorists, and now we're going to call the Russians terrorists. What does that mean? Are we setting up the predicate for bombing Russian boats? What happens if the U.S. Navy seizes a Russian oil tanker the way it did a Venezuelan oil tanker last week?

Well, the lunacy seems to know no bounds. I think we need to pause, though, and say something. about Senator Paul. Bismarck used to say that no man has a destiny, but every man has character of some kind, and his character is his destiny. I think we can certainly pay tribute to Senator Paul as a man of extraordinary character, strength of character and purpose, and thank God for him, because he's very nearly the lone ranger now. Everyone else is the business of looking for cover and concealment when it comes to speaking the truth no one wants to go there i i think this business is going to come to an end but it will not come to an end until something terrible happens

to us now what do i mean by that i mean that we lose on the battlefield that we lose large numbers of americans in uniform needlessly which could easily happen in this in the caribbean basin judge and then we are confronted with an outcry here at home you know recently i've read people talking about the the two national guardsmen from iowa who were killed in syria and mayn are saying mine what's the national guard doing in syria well the national guard has been going all over the place for decades that's to a large extent something the national guard bureau wants because the guard bureau sees itself as in competition with the regular army they're always trying to step in. But when you start losing people in great numbers, particularly

citizen soldiers, not somebody like me who was in the regular army, who was a professional soldier, if I got killed, everybody said, well, that's sad and then move on. But when you have a citizen soldier, someone who is not normally in uniform, who signs up to defend the United States, and then ends up defending vague interests six, seven, eight thousand miles from home, then you get an outcry. I think the world knows that. And I would be most concerned at this point, given what President Trump is about to do,

that the Venezuelans will find an opportunity. We may present it without realizing it to kill large numbers of Americans in uniform because that seems to be the only thing that gets anybody's attention, the deaths of large numbers of Americans' uniform. Go back to Lebanon when we lost those Marines in the hospital, over 300 killed.

That precipitated what? Our withdrawal. And rightly so, because from the very beginning, then Secretary of Defense Weinberger told President Reagan, what are we doing there? We're not going to make any difference. We're a liability. Forget it. Get them out.

Reagan kept them there because George Schultz persuaded him to do so. But as soon as these men died in great numbers, and over 300 is what I consider to be a great number in one day, that was it. He pulled the plug. So let's see what happens in Venezuela. That's my great fear right now. If you want to influence the United States, kill large numbers of American soldiers, sailors, air, or Marines,

in a place and at a time that the American people don't really understand, and you stand an excellent chance of seeing us all go home. You and I have talked about this before a couple of times, but you wrote a great piece about it at the American Conservative, and we've posted it at Judge Knapp.com, and you also suggested a companion piece. So this is a two-part question, Colonel. Is the US military top heavy

with people with stars on their shoulders and how deleterious to human progress is the manner in which they acquire the stars on their shoulders? Or in the case of the name, baby on their sleeves? Well, the first answer is yes. We have an enormous overhead.

Jobs in the Pentagon that used to be performed by lieutenant colonels or colonels are now performed by brigadier generals, major generals. We have rank inflation wildly out of control. And part of that, not all of it, but part of it has to do with the authorization for the use of force. Congress loves to promote officers to flag rank and the chiefs of all the services love to add generals for the ranks. And in that authorization for the use of military force, there's essentially a statement in there that allows additional flag officers to be added as needed based on the

judgment of the service chiefs. This is created a monster. We have too many people with too much rank doing too little. And that's problem number one. Problem number two is that we don't have a professional staff system. In other words, you graduate from college or you graduate from West Point or the Naval Academy. There are very few tests along the way to determine whether or not you're actually competent to be promoted. And so the real test, if you will, for promotion is whether or not you are somebody that all of the senior officers like if you're someone all the senior officers are confident won't rock the boat who will go along who will not question that's the key the key feature for advancement to high rank what you have now and have had really for more than 35 years

are people at the top who they not only stayed long enough to get promoted but they demonstrated conclusively that they will willingly follow stupid orders without question. And that's a key feature of the whole thing. And this begins early. You know, you demonstrate early, wait a minute, that's a dumb thing they just asked us to do. I'm not going to do it. Let me go see the boss and see what I can find out. You don't do that in this force right now. You do that once or twice and you're gone. You're identified. This is not a quote-unquote team player. So you have a problem with professional competence, with character competence and intelligence. Those things have to be tested for and evaluated. They're not. We're testing for the opposite. How well

does this man brief the PowerPoint slide presentation? How slick is he? Does he make us all feel good? Is he on our team? As one officer told me, Doug, you have to persuade the general officer in command that you're a friend. I looked at this person. I said, what? Oh, you have to be thought of as a friend if you want to get promoted. I said, I thought I had to demonstrate that I knew what the hell I was doing. And the guy just looked at me, he said, that's not the way it works, Doug. And he was right. He was absolutely right. And I probably should have adjusted accordingly, but I was too habitually committed to what I thought was important and right. And so it had no future that the bottom line is the whole force is a mess and it needs a lot of work the navy

is in a lot of trouble you can pick up any number of papers and read all about it we read about problems in the united states military all the time it goes from well the ships are not in good shape they don't spend enough time in port we need new engines we need new missiles the missiles are too old. We have crews that are not trained adequately to load them and fire them. When you move into the Army and the Air Force, you see similar things. The Air Force is flying the wings off of its aircraft. And everybody says, well, that's the job. Well, that may seem like it's the job, but there is a point of no return when you've exhausted the equipment. And then there's no willingness to really look into the future and understand that what we've got now is not necessarily

what we will need in 10 years. And if you're going to do something that is going to do something that is to produce success in a future conflict that counts an existential fight for the existence of the nation you have to start 10 or 20 years in advance to get there no sense of that in other words oh we'll just spend more money and we'll have all the capability we need defense is not something that you go to walmart and buy off the shelf doesn't work that way it takes years and it takes cultural change and that comes with new people we can talk for hours but right problem is Americans don't get it. They don't understand it. And I remember watching, you know, the Senate hearings during some of the Watergate proceedings and earlier and listening to men in the Senate who had served in the Second World War. They had a much better grasp of these things. They asked harder questions. They raised issues. That doesn't happen anymore because we don't have those kinds of people. And I don't know what you. you do about it in the short run. But what I do know is it the best thing you can do is, first of all,

cut the spending and cut the overhead. It has to happen. And if we don't cut spending, our creditors will never cooperate with us when we have to make truly profound changes to the way we do business in this country. And I think we're getting closer to that. I think financial Armageddon is closer now than it's ever been. Because people will stop lending us money. The Senate just rejected the president's, this is a big deal to him and to Secretary Heggseth. I don't think it's a big deal of the public. Rejected the name change of the Department of Defense to the Department of War. But the president says that he and Heggs says will continue to call it the Department of War.

I mean, I understand their personalities. As you know, I know them both. However, is this a metaphor calling it war? rather than defense for what they want to do, which is not to defend, but to take over. Well, they certainly seem to confuse going to war with Venezuela with defense. Preemptive war, which is effectively what the president wants to engage in, was described by Bismarck as committing suicide out of fear of death. we have an awful lot of people

that want to preempt things all the time let's go and get them now you know this sort of thing it's always wrong it's always disastrous I think the change is unfortunate the fact that you're saying we want to go to war

is a bad thing and we should treat war as I said at the beginning as the last option national defense is not going to war unless you absolutely positively must because you are under unambiguous and direct threat and you and i know and everybody watching this knows all you have to do is go to the drug enforcement agency website and you'll discover that

venezuela is not you know the uh unimpeachable source of all our misfortunes with drugs that's a lot of nonsense it would be better if the president was a little more honest but then again if he were really honest and he started talking about the resources and access to them then somebody might raise their hands and say do we have to go to war to get that and we don't right colonel thank you very much great conversations very very instructive as you have indicated the type of thoughts that can only come from somebody who was a true full-time professional regular army soldier in your case educated at west point and then with your phd afterwards thank you colonel it's always a pleasure we have a short week next week but i hope we can have one more because of

Christmas. I hope we can have one more segment together before the year ends. Well, that'll be tough. I plan to tune in and drop out, as they say, until the 29th of December. So, Merry Christmas to every year. Well, Merry Christmas to you, Colonel. Happy New Year, and we'll see you in a couple of weeks. All the best, my dear friend. Right. Thanks. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Coming up later today at 3 o'clock, Phil Giraldi, Judge the Palatano for Judging Freedom. Thank you.