Judging Freedom - Ukraine Russia war - Col Doug Macgregor

Episode Date: November 8, 2022

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Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Tuesday, November 8, 2022, Election Day in the United States, midterm elections. It's about three o'clock in the afternoon here on the east coast of the United States. Our guest today is our most recognizable guest, Colonel Douglas McGregor. Colonel, it's always a pleasure to be with you. Colonel, you informed me last evening of something I had seen in the New York Times, but not with the specificity with which you informed me, and that is Jake Sullivan, who is President Biden's national security advisor, has been meeting with people in the Russian government. Perhaps his opposite number, whatever the national security advisor to President Putin is called, perhaps some people very close to President Putin, perhaps some people in the Russian Ministry of Defense. And you have sources telling you that

if he said what your sources tell you he said, the public needs to know about this. It's not only dumb, it's potentially devastating. So take the ball on this, please, Colonel, and run with it as best you can. Sure. There are two sources, really. One is the Wall Street Journal, which is probably the best. And then there was also mention of this in the New York Times. And you have to read carefully because it starts out by saying that Jake Sullivan, for whatever reason, is the only member of the White House contingent right now who is in contact with Putin's government. And we're not sure what that means. Are these back channels? Are these direct face-to-face meetings? Are these calls? That was not made clear. Secondly- So let me stop you. Is this unusual? Or does the Secretary of State, for example, normally talk to the Russian foreign minister? Does the U.S. ambassador to Moscow talk to somebody in the Russian government on a regular

basis? Normally, I think the Secretary of State would do the talking with the Russian foreign minister, but his meetings with Mr. Lavrov have been so tense and problematic, I don't think there would be much to discuss. Frankly, I think the Russian foreign minister is finished listening to anything Mr. Blinken says. By the way, I think that's probably true for the Chinese foreign minister as well. And as far as we know, has Jake Sullivan been to Moscow or some neutral site, or is all of this via electronic means, Zoom or telephone or whatever they use? Well, that's the whole point.

My supposition, based upon what I read in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, is it was probably electronic. Whether, again, that was a back-channel message in exchange there or people talk to each other as you and I are talking right now, we just don't know. The two people he spoke to, one was a former Russian ambassador to Washington, and the other gentleman had been the head of the FSB, and you could probably characterize him as as close as you're going to get to a national security advisor. Okay, FSB is the English initials for what succeeded the KGB. Right, exactly.

Okay, so it's not exactly the same. Okay, it would be like somebody talking to the head of the FBI or the head of the CIA. Right, pretty much. And he, obviously, this man is extremely well connected, and he's close to President Putin. Now, there wasn't a whole lot said about what the Russians said, only about what Jake Sullivan allegedly discussed. And, of course, they said he was talking about an interest in containing the conflict to ensure that it did not grow or expand beyond the current borders of Ukraine, which is completely legitimate. It makes perfect sense. There wasn't much detail, but there was also the implication that, once again, he had threatened the Russians with unknown consequences if they used nuclear weapons.

Well, that seems ridiculous because the Russians are the ones that have always said no, and they've simply responded to loose talk in Washington or by statements from the president or others about the use of nuclear weapons. The Russian side had very little to say, but when they were asked, the official spokesman said they discussed red lines. Now, red line is very important because red line means you go this far and something happens. There are consequences to your action. There was no discussion of the details about the red lines, but that's what the Russians said.

In addition, allegedly, Jake Sullivan talked about, the best way to put this is, the dangers of escalation and wasn't explicitly nuclear at all. He simply said, we see evidence that you, Russia, are preparing to escalate this conflict, which is true. This is what we've been talking about, these offenses. And we're warning you against that. The unspoken implication at this point is that we're prepared to jump into this conflict in some way because we will not allow you to partition Ukraine. We will not allow you to fight and win this war on your terms. Okay, a couple of questions. One, correct me if I'm wrong, Ukraine has been partitioned for a long time, has it not?

No, no, no, no. They're talking about the Leninist Soviet construct, which we accepted at the end of the Cold War as the legitimate borders of Ukraine, even though that trapped millions of Russians in the east inside Ukraine, where they had never been before. In other words, they were not Ukrainians. So living inside Ukraine was meaningless because Ukraine was not very meaningful in the context of the Soviet Union. Okay, that's what I meant. I guess I didn't use the right terminology. You used the word threat. Do you know if Sullivan mentioned directly or indirectly the presence of 40,000 American troops, the 101st Airborne in Poland? Well, we don't, but we think

based upon the language that has sort of leaked out that was in that paragraph that I received from another source, that he did imply that they had 90,000 troops in Poland and Romania, and that potentially, if Russia escalated, presumably on the scale that we think the Russians will escalate, that we might be prepared to jump in, and that we would jump in with 40,000 U.S. troops, 30,000 Polish troops, and 20,000 Romanian troops. Well, that's 90,000 troops. I mean, would Sullivan, who's not a military person, be foolish, even crazy enough to issue a threat that he knows would make its way directly to President Putin? Well, I'm not sure that, you know, he gave them great details. I think he made it clear that we are in a position to

intervene. Clearly, the Russians know exactly what we have on the ground in Poland and in Romania. And Judge, there are so many sleeper cells and observers and agents all up and down Eastern Europe with everything from cell phones to whatever you want to report on everything that happens, it's not funny. I mean, for instance, during the Kosovo air campaign, every time our aircraft lifted off the ground in Italy, it was immediately transmitted how many aircraft had lifted off, which direction they flew and what they were carrying.

So this was for the Serbs. So, you know, the Russians have exactly the same, probably much better information. Plus they have all the satellite arrays and space-based intelligence. They have the equivalent of the NSA. They certainly know what we're doing. And I think that he didn't have to provide very many details. He simply had to point out we have the means to intervene. Now, what the Russians said, they talked about red lines. What we don't know is what the Russians said in response. Because if you're a Russian, the red line is clear. If you move into Ukraine, you are going to be at war with Russia. Now, we seem to be in denial about that. We seem to think.

Let me make sure I get this straight. Are you of the belief from what you know from open sources and what you know from with whomever you speak that is not open, that Jake Sullivan, the president's national security advisor, more or less directly or indirectly threatened the Russians that if they cross these red lines, they will meet with American military resistance in Ukraine. I think that implication was made. And that's the impression that I'm getting. And I don't think we should be surprised by that, because Ukraine's position is deteriorating very, very rapidly at this point. And we're very concerned about a Ukrainian collapse. Some estimates are that the entire economy and social structure of the country will collapse in 60 days. Some people are saying that, you know,

they're going to general mobilization in Ukraine right now, which may include women, because their manpower base is largely exhausted. And remember, people continue to leave Ukraine as much as possible. Nobody wants to be stuck in a country that very shortly will have no power, no electricity, going to have trouble getting water, trouble getting food. The situation in Ukraine is really dire. And the Russians have been patient. They've sat on the defense. They've let the Ukrainians expend themselves in these counterattacks. And they've watched Europe sink into this large economic pit of disaster. Well, while Jake Sullivan is having his meetings and issuing his threats or engaging in whatever diplomacy he believes he's

engaging in. Can you tell us, if you know, what the Department of Defense is doing? What are 40,000 armed, uniformed, trained, prepared American troops on the 101st Airborne, meaning they could parachute into Ukraine? What are they doing? They're not all from the 101st i mean you have elements of several divisions there you know you probably have the equivalent of three divisions at any rate or close to it along with what are they doing in poland well according to all reports they're training very hard and trying to prepare themselves for combat operations. And that is effectively what the commander of the 101st said when he was interviewed. Now, there's some things that have developed that are worthy of everybody's attention. Here they are. Number one, over the

weekend, there were tremendous demonstrations against the government in Romania. The population in Romania is not supportive of joining a war against Russia. Gee, what a surprise. Moldova, which is just across the border, the president there is in serious political trouble. The demonstrations there have turned violent in many cases. They want that president removed because of her interest in joining the anti-Russian alliance. So these areas down in the south are not very stable. About the only one right now in NATO that is stable in this sense, politically, and absolutely committed to whatever anti-Russian crusade we want to launch is really Poland.

There's no happenstance. I think Poland would lead the anti-Russian crusade. That's how devoted and dedicated they are to this cause, however frivolous it might be. Now, in addition, there was a large convoy of U.S. troops, primarily support troops for aviation purposes, that drove from Poland down to Romania. They went through Moldova. They did not go through Hungary, which would have been much shorter and easier because the Hungarians declined to let them through. So they had to go through Moldova. And now we're dealing with a Moldova that doesn't look particularly stable at this point. And Moldova seems to be key to any intervention

we might want to launch from the south. Has the Defense Department, given the President of the United States, plans for the entry of U.S. troops into Ukraine? Is that done? I think those plans have certainly been discussed, if not briefed, to Jake Sullivan, certainly to the Secretary of State's aware. I don't know what they may have told the President of the United States. I mean, my hope is that he received some sort of briefing. Again, this is all very serious because we're in the middle of this election, and this could happen without any consultation with Congress whatsoever. And remember that even though we may succeed in removing large numbers of people and

replacing them with new ones in this election, doesn't necessarily mean it's going to have any impact because that new Congress won't be seated until January. So you still have, you know, Biden supporters and the war supporters are still largely in control of Congress until January. Is anybody in the Biden administration putting their arm around President Zelensky's shoulder saying, let's talk about the conditions for negotiation? Or are they nowhere near that? Yes, no. That was the second purpose of the trip that Jake Sullivan took. I mean, he went to meet with Zelensky in Kiev. And also driving in on the meeting was Senator Coons, who's a Democrat, and Senator Portman, who's a Republican. Those two went over to visit with him to, I guess, express their eternal support for Ukraine come hell or high water.

And again, Jake Sullivan said, we are with you. We will support you. We will not abandon you. However, he said it would be useful, apparently, for you to negotiate with Putin. And one of the reasons given, and this was in the Wall Street Journal article by one of the members of the NSC staff was very straightforward. There are members of NATO who are suffering from quote unquote, Ukraine fatigue. It would be helpful if you would express a willingness to negotiate with President Putin. Well, it's more than Ukraine, fatigue judge. People are saying, wait a minute, we don't want this war to continue.

We want an end to the war. Why can't you negotiate an end to the war? Well, the day after, yesterday, in fact, Mr. Zelensky said very clearly, without hesitation, the only preconditions for negotiations with Russia are that the Russians evacuate all of our territory. Well, they're not going to do that. I mean, that's farcical. Of course not. So the whole idea of negotiations is dead. But it struck me that what I think Sullivan was saying to him is, make nice, create the illusion that you're willing to negotiate. Even that did not work. And there are lots of people saying that, you know, Zelensky

and his government are essentially hostage to radical right-wing elements, nationalists, who in fact have promised to execute people that express any interest in talking to or negotiating with the Russians. In the meanwhile, what is the status of the introduction into the theater of war of those 300,000 reservists that President Putin famously called up about a month ago? The majority have already been assimilated or integrated into formations and units. A lot of them have gone into units that were under strength that are now back up at full strength. Some have gone into new units. It's almost complete. But the bottom line is that the low temperature right now in Ukraine has been 37 degrees. You're still going to be stuck in the mud,

whether you are attacking or defending. Until that ground freezes, I don't think a lot's going to happen. Now, that could happen tomorrow. You could have a 30-degree temperature drop. That's happened before. But it also may not happen until mid-December. You just don't know. But when the winter arrives and it freezes, that's when the Russians will attack. And we see evidence for at least three different directions from the immediate east, from the southeast, and from the north. And judging from the buildup and the weapon systems that are in place, the supplies that are available. This is an offensive designed in Russian minds to end the war. Whether or not it will, we don't know. But I think that's the idea.

So why wasn't all of this on the front page of the New York Times? Why aren't even conservative commentators that despise Biden and his administration saying, what are you crazy sending Jake Sullivan over there to threaten the Russians? Well, first of all, that's not what explicitly what was reported. I mean, that's coming through multiple sources, but the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, and for that matter, the Washington Post are aligned with the administration. They support hostilities with Russia. They support the conflict with Russia. They support the current foreign policy with its sanctions towards Russia. So you're going to, whatever you get through the mainstream

media, I mean, this, I would argue this is true for Fox News as well, with very few exceptions, you're going to get something that's designed to maintain public support for the administration and its efforts. I think that's a disaster. In fact, I would regard all of this, frankly, as a gift to the Republicans, because I think the Republicans are now in a position to say, all right, we've supported you. And yes, many of us are sympathetic to the Ukrainian cause. However, we're not prepared to provide any more support until we see evidence, clear evidence, for the willingness to negotiate and end to this war. And until we see evidence for that, no more. To me, that would be an easy

win for the Republicans. But you're also asking people to give up an awful lot of potential money that comes to them through PACs, through lobbyists and others who are pushing hard for this conflict. Right, right. And a lot of money that goes to the military industrial complex, which is spread out over half, strategically, over half the congressional districts in the country. Colonel, even when the news is terrifying, it's a pleasure to hear it from you. Thanks for joining us. Well, there's one last thing, if I may, to leave you with. When General Surovikin, he is the commander of the Western Theater, accepted his appointment, he gave brief remarks at his appointment to head the Western Theater. One of the things that he said, which he would not have said had he not discussed this in detail with President Putin, is that a so-called Syrian

solution for Ukraine is unacceptable. In other words, we will not allow Ukraine to fall under the influence of various actors that maintains Ukraine in a state of permanent turmoil and war. That's a very clear signal that when they launch, they plan to put an end to the conflict. So it would be very unwise for us to get in the way of this. Now, I think given what we just discussed about Romania and the situation there with regard to the rest of NATO, I'm sure some sober-minded people in the Department of Defense are saying, we need to think this one through very long and hard because we just don't have the level of support that we need to guarantee success. Let's just hope that there's that level of sobriety in the Oval Office.

Colonel, thank you very much. Thank you. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.