Douglas Macgregor

On July 27, 2020, the White House announced Donald Trump's intent to nominate Macgregor as U.S. Ambassador to Germany.[22][23]

Following the announcement, Macgregor's history of controversial remarks received media attention. He had asserted that Muslim immigrants (referred to as "Muslim invaders") come to Europe "with the goal of eventually turning Europe into an Islamic state".[24] Macgregor had argued that the German concept of Vergangenheitsbewältigung, used to cope with Germany's Nazi past and its atrocities during World War II, is a "sick mentality".[24] Macgregor had stated that martial law should be instituted on the U.S.-Mexico border and argued for the extrajudicial execution of those who cross the border at unofficial ports of entry.[24]

In a column in The Washington Post by Max Boot, he was described as "a racist crackpot who is pro-Russia, anti-Merkel, anti-Muslim and anti-Mexican".[25] His nomination stalled in the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.[26]

On January 3, 2021, his nomination was returned to the President under Rule XXXI, Paragraph 6 of the United States Senate.[27]

On November 11, 2020, a Pentagon spokesperson announced that Macgregor had been hired by President Trump to serve as senior advisor to the new Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller, as part of a sweeping change in senior defence staffing. At the time, Macgregor was an advocate of US withdrawal from Afghanistan, a Trump policy opposed by the defence establishment. His appointment was welcomed by Senator Rand Paul, who described Macgregor as his friend. The appointment caused controversy due to Macgregor's history of racist comments and supporting Russia in its geopolitical ambitions.[28][29][30] He held the post until Trump left office in January 2021.[31]

In December 2020, President Trump appointed Macgregor to a three-year term on the advisory board of the United States Military Academy at West Point, his alma mater. Because of the allegations of xenophobia made against him, the appointment was opposed by West Point's Black alumni organization and board member Tammy Duckworth, among others.[32] The appointment was one of a number terminated by President Joe Biden in September 2021.[33]

In 2004, Macgregor stated that he strongly supported war against Iraq, and regretted that the US had not enacted regime change in Iraq in 1991.[34] During the beginning of the Iraq War, Macgregor disagreed with those who wanted to slow the advance into Baghdad in order to fight Fedayeen paramilitary forces.[35] In 2006, after seven retired generals criticized then Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's handling of the war, Macgregor faulted the generals themselves for poor war planning and the resulting complications in Iraq.[36] In 2008, Macgregor stated that he would argue that American military action in Iraq and Afghanistan "has produced very serious and negative consequences for American national-security interests".[37] Macgregor's 2009 book, Warrior's Rage: The Great Tank Battle of 73 Easting, argues that the failure to finish the battle with the Republican Guard in 1991 led to Iraq's second major confrontation with the United States in 2003.

Macgregor says that David Petraeus, Martin Dempsey, and other generals consistently exaggerated or falsified the effectiveness of the Iraqi army because "the generals were simply cultivating their Bush administration sponsors in pursuit of further promotion".[38]

By 2020, his website called the war in Iraq a failure.[24]

In a 2013 radio appearance, Macgregor spoke of an "entitled" "underclass" of people that were concentrated in "large urban areas", and the threat they posed.

"And when the food stamps stop, when the free services end, when the heating bills aren’t paid and the heating doesn’t come through in many of these large cities—Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, Washington, Baltimore, St. Louis, Detroit, New Orleans, San Francisco, Los Angeles—this underclass that resides in these places, I think could become very violent."[32]

In 2019, he argued for the myth that there were more White, mostly Irish "slaves" than African slaves in America in the late 1700s.[32]

In 2014, Macgregor went on Russian state-owned RT to express his opposition to U.S. intervention in the Kosovo War.[24] He described the results of US intervention in Kosovo as to "put, essentially, a Muslim drug mafia in charge of that country".[3]

In a 2016 presentation to military students, Macgregor said that "old alliances like NATO may vanish", arguing that it is "time to reexamine U.S. investment in 'allies' that are doing too little to secure their own sovereign interests" and that the "Cold War ended 27 years ago".[39]

In 2020, CNN reviewed his public commentary and

found he often demonized immigrants and refugees. He warned Mexican cartels were "driving millions of Mexicans with no education, no skills and the wrong culture into the United States, placing them essentially as wards of the American people". He repeatedly advocated instituting martial law at the US-Mexico border and to "shoot people" if necessary.[3]

In 2019, on the Conservative Commandos radio show, Macgregor said that George Soros was financing the transportation of foreigners to the United States to destroy American culture:

“The largest problem of all is really a network of people like George Soros, who are committed Marxists, who see the destruction of the United States and of Western Europe as a means to an end of creating what they think will be this global society and the planet... Pretty soon, there won’t be very many Americans left inside the United States if they can ship in enough of these foreigners. And of course, the big falsehood is ‘well, they’ll all become Americans. Just give them time.’ We don’t see much evidence for that right now. In fact, we see the opposite. We see hardcore points of foreign culture that is hostile to the United States, hostile to our values, hostile to our way of life forming across the country.

He made similar claims about Soros on Lou Dobbs' Fox show in December 2019.[20] He has described Muslim migrants in Europe as "unwanted invaders", arriving "with the goal of eventually turning Europe into an Islamic state".[32] In April 2021 on Frank Morano's radio show, Macgregor blamed the Democratic Party for immigration:

I think some of you must have seen the thousands of pregnant women coming up from Latin America, so they can have their children here — and then, the child immediately is declared an American citizen. And again, all of this is part of the grand plan. This is what Mr. Biden and his supporters want. They want another country. They don't want the United States.[40]

These views were described by MSNBC, Media Matters for America, The Insider and Newsweek as a version of Great Replacement Theory.[41][42][43][44]

Macgregor has made statements in support of Israel having defensible borders, the annexation of the Golan Heights, and the decision to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem.[45] On several occasions he has said that U.S. support for Israel is due to the "Israeli lobby" making top officials "very, very rich".[46][47][48][49][50]

In 2014, after Russia annexed Crimea and was engaged in a conflict with Ukraine over its eastern parts, Macgregor appeared on Russian state-owned network RT where he called for the annexation of the Donbas and said residents of the region "are in fact Russians, not Ukrainians, and at the same time, you have Ukrainians in the west and in the north, who are not Russians".[24][51]

After Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Macgregor appeared on three Fox News programs in February and early March to speak in support of Russia's actions. Three days after the war began, he said "The battle in eastern Ukraine is really almost over," and predicted "If [Ukraine] don't surrender in the next 24 hours, I suspect Russia will ultimately annihilate them." Macgregor said he believed Russia should be allowed to seize whatever parts of Ukraine it wanted. In his second appearance, he revised his prediction: "The first five days Russian forces I think frankly were too gentle. They've now corrected that. So, I would say another 10 days this should be completely over... I think the most heroic thing he could do right now is come to terms with reality. Neutralize Ukraine." After one of his appearances, Macgregor's comments were characterized by veteran Fox News Pentagon correspondent Jennifer Griffin as "distorting" and "appeasement" and that he was being an "apologist" for Putin. After Griffin's remarks, Tucker Carlson — who hosted Macgregor on two successive nights — remarked, "Unlike many of the so-called reporters you see on television, he is not acting secretly as a flack for Lloyd Austin at the Pentagon. No, Doug Macgregor is an honest man." Trey Gowdy, another Fox News host who interviewed Macgregor, said his viewpoint was "stunning and disappointing".[52][53][54][55][56][57]

Russian state television channels RT and VGTRK broadcast excerpts of Macgregor's second Carlson appearance, which included a characterization of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a "puppet," that Russian forces had been "too gentle" in the early days of the invasion and that Russian president Vladimir Putin was being "demonized" by the United States and NATO.[52][58] U.S. representative Liz Cheney said of Macgregor "This is the Putin wing of the GOP."[59][60][61][62]

In a fourth appearance in early March, Macgregor said a ceasefire was close as Ukrainian forces had been "grounded to bits. There's no question about that despite what we report on our mainstream media".[52] He also defended Russia's invasion in an interview on The Grayzone, saying Putin had taken great care with civilians and this was delaying his victory.[63]

In July 2022, on Real America's Voice he told Charlie Kirk that:

"The war, with the exception of Kharkiv and Odesa, as far as the Russians are concerned is largely over. There is no intention to do anything else because the Russians don’t have a very large army... This nonsense that Putin wants to conquer all of Ukraine was never true. All he ever did in the Minsk agreement was ask that Russian speakers, Russian citizens inside Ukraine be treated equally before the law. That they not be penalized for being Russians."[64]

In September 2022, he again predicted on Carlson's show that “this war may be over soon”[65] and later in the month "the Ukrainian army is bled white, tens of thousands of Ukrainian troops have been killed or wounded, Ukraine is really on the ropes". Liz Cheney tweeted in response: "Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch - Why do you continually put Douglas MacGregor on @FoxNews to spread Putin's propaganda and lies? This is absolutely not in America's interest."[66]

In an October 2021 speech to the Serbian American Voters Alliance, Macgregor said “We have a huge problem with a class of so-called elites, the people who are wealthy, very wealthy in many cases and they are, as the Russians used to call certain individuals many, many years ago, rootless cosmopolitans... They live above all of this, they have no connection to the country. There is nothing there that holds them in place, and they are largely responsible, in my judgment, for the condition that we are in today,” using a Soviet antisemitic trope.[67][68][15][52]

Macgregor opposes diversity or affirmative action programmes in the military, including women serving in combat. In a 2021 interview, while serving on the West Point board, he said:

What we call diversity – in the extreme. In other words, affirmative action programs for every conceivable category of humanity that the left wants to come up with, ” said Macgregor. “Whether it’s someone who is a gender neutral or homosexual or whatever else, the left loves to put us into categories and push this. And the people that went along with it and said, ‘sure, let’s put women into the combat forces. Let’s have women everywhere.’ Let’s do whatever we want to do. We’re going to create this brave new world where everyone is the same. There are no differences, nothing matters. So I think that’s where we are.[40]

• Colonel (Retired) Douglas A., Macgregor (July 2018). "Thoughts on Force Design in an Era of Shrinking Defense Budgets". The Dado Center Journal. 16–17.