Col. Douglas Macgregor: Gaza a Sideshow; Iran the Main Event (Transcript)

I also think this is something that President Trump both wanted and felt that he needed. President Trump has been frustrated because he hasn’t been able to publicly take credit for some sort of peace arrangement in the Middle East. I think he very much wants a settlement. Having said that, he now has the optics of a settlement, and frankly, for him, that may be enough. He’s very focused on optics, on appearances.

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Right.

COL. DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: You saw him on the stage in front of the giant American flag, a la George Patton in the movie. I think he’s very delighted with that. But I would point out that in the final analysis, he is not a completely free agent. I think he’s still a prisoner of his donors. And his wealthiest and most important donors are those associated with Israel and its interests. I think they wanted something, but I don’t think they’ve given up on the Greater Israel project at all. So I think this is a pause. How long will it last is anybody’s guess.

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Well, the Israelis are committed, A, to Greater Israel and B, to eradicating the Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. I mean, that’s in their genetic makeup, or at least this government has committed them to that.

COL. DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: I think the Israeli population agrees with you, Judge. I think at least 80% of them are absolutely supportive of those goals. So this again looks like a pause to me, as opposed to some sort of permanent outcome.

The Likelihood of Resumed Hostilities

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: What happens when the IDF resumes bombing Gaza, which could happen next week?

COL. DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: Yeah. My impression is that once all the hostages are returned, there will probably be some small period of pacification or something resembling peace, but then the shooting will resume. And there are so many other actors involved in this thing right now. The Israelis have some proxy forces that are Arabs, supposedly with some connection back to Syria and ISIS. Then you still have Hamas that remains active and supportive. I just don’t see how this mix of volatile participants can avoid colliding with each other.

So I think you’re right. I think at some point the bombing will resume. Now, the question is, what happens with Iran? And I know that certainly Prime Minister Netanyahu was able to talk briefly on the phone with President Putin and supposedly express the view that Israel doesn’t want a war with Iran. Well, I think the Iranians have heard that before. I’m not sure that’s going to change anybody’s readiness to fight in Iran.

So I’m still, I’m just skeptical by nature of the whole business. This has been tried before. It doesn’t work.

Trump’s Controversial Statements About Netanyahu

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: I want to ask you about Iran in a minute, but before we do, I want your comments on some of the more extreme things the President said today. I wonder if he thinks that Netanyahu is guilty of crimes and for that reason needs a pardon. Chris, number 12.

VIDEO CLIP BEGINS:

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Okay, I have an idea, Mr. President. Why don’t you give him a pardon? By the way, that was not in the speech, as you probably know, but I happen to like this gentleman right over here, and it just seems to make so much sense, you know, whether we like it or not. This has been one of the greatest wartime presidents. This has been one of the greatest wartime presidents. And cigars and champagne. Who the hell cares about…

VIDEO CLIP ENDS:

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: First of all, he’s referring to the Prime Minister of Israel as the president. Secondly, to say that he is engaged in behavior that can be characterized as great is truly demented, in my view, in light of what Netanyahu has done. He has caused the entire world to question the moral basis of the Zionist experiment.

COL. DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: Well, isn’t that testimony to the extent to which President Trump is out of touch with reality?

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Yes.

COL. DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: I mean, he’s addressing his donors right there. His donors are watching. These are the people that have paid for the White House as well as control of Congress, and Netanyahu is their hero. They all sympathize with the goals that we stated earlier. I don’t think anybody should be surprised by this.

Also, keep something else in mind. You know, President Trump is somebody who interacts with audiences, and if he feels the audience likes something, he struck a chord, then he elaborates. So if the audience hadn’t clapped as vigorously as they did earlier, he might not have said what he did. I’m not sure that a great deal is thought out in advance. He said, “Well, this wasn’t in the original speech, as you know.” I think he’s being quite honest there. This is an impulse driven personality. And I don’t think he carefully considered the consequences or impact of his words.

Trump’s Comments on Miriam Adelson

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: At one point, he praised the Mossad’s wealthiest asset and recounted her inability to say which country she loves more. Number 11, Chris.

VIDEO CLIP BEGINS:

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Got 60 billion in the bank. 60 billion. And she loves, and I think she’s saying no more. And she loves Israel, but she loves it. And they would come in and her husband was a very aggressive man, but I loved him. He was very aggressive, very supportive of me. And he’d call up, “Can I come over and see you?” I say, “Sheldon, I’m the President of the United States. It doesn’t work that way.” He’d come in, but they were very responsible for so much, including getting me thinking about Golan Heights, which is probably one of the greatest things to ever happen to Asia.

Miriam, stand up, please. She really is. I mean, she loves this country. She loves this country. Her and her husband are so incredible. We miss him so dearly. But I actually asked her, I’ve got to get her in trouble with this. But I actually asked her once, I said, “So, Miriam, I know you love Israel. What do you love more, the United States or Israel?” She refused to answer. That means, that might mean Israel, I must say.

VIDEO CLIP ENDS:

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: But it was reprehensible that he would be joking about that, that he would recount it, that he would tell the world her supposed wealth, which is an extraordinary number, but nobody’s business.

COL. DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: Well, I remember that Miriam’s husband was the one who called Donald Trump and begged him to talk to John Bolton, urged him to consider John Bolton for the job as National Security Advisor. And up until that point, President Trump had refused to meet with the man. He didn’t like Bolton, didn’t like anything about him and didn’t want him around. But Adelson said, “Please, Donald, please talk to him. He’s a good man.”

Well, that’s how we got John Bolton. So I think we have to remember if that’s how you got John Bolton, that’s how you got the war in Israel. That’s how you’re going to get everything else.

The Connection Between Gaza and Iran

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Is there a connection? Can you draw a line between the ceasefire in Gaza and the Israeli-US plans to attack Iran?

COL. DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: You know, to do something like that, I would have to be on the inside of the decision making process. I’d have to have intimate knowledge of what is being discussed in the Joint Staff and in the Chairman’s office, and I just don’t. So if I were to draw a line from one to the other, I could say, well, perhaps a certain amount of peace in Gaza is necessary while Israel presses ahead with its plans to attack Iran. I don’t know.

One of the things that has always worked in Israel’s favor has been the inability of the various states in the region to unify against them. No one has been willing to do that. And so Iran is really the lone ranger in the region. Iran has stood up to Israel, has made it clear it won’t submit, and is quite capable of fighting Israel. Everyone else has sort of stood around and shivered in fear of the United States if they were to lift a finger against Israel.

I don’t know. It’s possible. I am very, very skeptical that anything that Mr. Netanyahu says is true, at least insofar as saying we don’t want war with Iran. I think he might have said we don’t want it right now. That I believe. But I don’t see how they get past the war with Iran.

Then again, I don’t know the level of damage inside Israel. And again, Israel is effectively what, the 51st state of the United States now. So as long as we’re sustaining them and keeping them afloat economically, they can continue in this kind of Israeli Disney world where we will do whatever they want and they can do whatever they like.

Trump’s Comments on Tomahawk Missiles

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: I want to talk to you about Tomahawks. Not the steak, but the missiles. But you and I had some nice Texas beef the other day in the great city of Dallas. Chris, watch this. Colonel, please cut number nine.

VIDEO CLIP BEGINS:

PRESIDENT TRUMP: We talked about weapons and the weapons are sent to NATO, and NATO then sends us a check. They pay for it. And they would need more weapons. And we’re looking into doing that. We hope we’re going to be able to provide them. They’d like to have Tomahawks, a step up. They’d like to have Tomahawks. We talked about that. And so we’ll see.

Well, I don’t know. I might have to speak to Russia, to be honest with you, about Tomahawks. Do they want to have Tomahawks going in their direction? I don’t think so. I think I might speak to Russia about that. In all fairness, I told that to President Zelensky because Tomahawks are a new step of aggression.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Are you saying that you will speak to Putin first about…

PRESIDENT TRUMP: And I might talk to him. I might say, “Look, if this war is not going to get settled, I’m going to send them Tomahawks.” I may say that if the war is not settled that we may, very well, we may not, but we may do it. I think it’s appropriate to bring them.

VIDEO CLIP ENDS:

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: President Lukashenko of Belarus, who often expresses what President Putin of Russia thinks, said they think that this is a bluff. But can you tell us what we need to know about Tomahawks? How significant are they? How many are available? What damage can they do? Are the Russians afraid of them? Why would Trump be taunting them with these?

Trump’s Condescending Approach to Russia

COL. DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: Well, the first thing, before we go into the details about the Tomahawk, which are worthwhile mentioning, we need to sort of note this condescending, insulting speech towards Russia. I mean, President Trump is acting as though he’s the father of two disgruntled children and he’s admonishing one of them to be good and do what he’s told. This sort of thing does not help us with Russia at all.

It really infuriates the Russian population. I’m sure it antagonizes and disappoints President Putin. And even though I’m well aware of President Lukashenko’s remarks and I think that he’s expressing a particular viewpoint that I think to some extent is shared by President Putin, I think President Putin and the Russian leadership have just about had enough of Mr. Trump’s sort of obliviation and silly remarks, to be blunt.

The Tomahawk Missile: Not a Miracle Weapon

Now, having said that, the Tomahawk is not some sort of miracle weapon that the Russians should be desperately afraid of. I don’t think that’s the issue. It has a 1,500 mile range, but that depends on the variant of the Tomahawk we’re talking about. There’s a Tomahawk you fire from a bomber. There’s a Tomahawk that is launched from a submarine. There’s a Tomahawk that can be launched from a destroyer, an Aegis class destroyer. Then there is a ground based Tomahawk that the army developed. I don’t know how many of them there are. I don’t even know what the Tomahawk inventory is.

But from personal experience back in 1998-99, the inventory is not that large. And if you think you’re going to launch Tomahawks in one theater before you do, there is usually cross leveling between regional unified commands to make sure the unified command that’s about to use Tomahawks actually has enough of them. I imagine that we are probably low in terms of our inventory of Tomahawks, especially new ones. We have a lot of old ones sitting around with questionable reliability. Perhaps we’ll throw those into the mix.

But again, what can we give to the Ukrainians? And the logical answer is, well, we could give them the ground launched version which the army has, but that’s going to take American mission planning and execution. That means you’re going to have to have American soldiers or at least contractors on the ground with a unique warhead. I don’t know how many of those warheads are online and ready for use.

Then there is the 40 foot container version of the Tomahawk that could be mounted on a barge and then launched out of this box, the way you see missiles launched from ships. I guess you could put it on the track bed of a rail car. I don’t know. I mean, this depends on how far along we are. And again, how many of these things do we have now?

Russian Air Defense Capabilities

Having said that, this is not a missile that flies fast enough to avoid being detected on radar. Tomahawk missiles were downed during the Kosovo air campaign by the Serbs. They shot them down. Now, they had an advantage because you were operating through Albania and through the mountains, and there were only so many places the Tomahawks could penetrate, whereas in Eastern Europe, you’ve got a much wider range, 1,100 miles to choose from in terms of where you might launch from.

But I don’t think the Russians are that concerned about the missile per se. However, given its range, if even one or two or three of these got through and absolutely hit targets in civilian neighborhoods, which is what the Ukrainians like to target, they’ve shot weapons and various missile systems, rockets and conventional munition into civilian neighborhoods. And if that were to happen and a large number of Russians were injured or killed, I think the pressure on Mr. Putin to respond would be enormous.

And I’m not sure how he would respond, because everybody knows this is an American weapon. People will know that it could not be fired without American military personnel or contract personnel on the ground operating it. I think the temptation to launch large numbers of Ereshniks that could strike targets all the way from Lithuania to Romania would be enormous.

I mean, people in Russia, and I don’t think Americans have any idea what this is like, are really fed up, fed up by the whole thing. This is analogous to a situation where, you know, the Russians or the Chinese or somebody put similar missiles, cruise missiles into Mexico, put them into the hands of the drug cartels, and then said, do your worst and walked away. What would we do under those circumstances? Would we simply blame the cartels? No, I think we would go after Russian or Chinese targets. My concern is that would happen here in Eastern Europe if President Trump decides to press ahead with it on the grounds that the Russians have failed to come around and stop the war.

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Direction, Colonel, are they nuclear capable?

COL. DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: You know, I don’t think any of the ones that we have right now in the theater are. There may be nuclear capable Tomahawks, but the ones that would be used? No, I don’t think so. I think they’re going to…

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: They would all have conventional warheads back to Iran. Are you still of the view that when they’re ready, the Israelis and the Americans will attack? Alistair Crook is of that view, and he believes it’ll be sooner rather than later because of atmospheric conditions that begin around Christmas time.

Israel’s Obsession with Iran

COL. DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: Well, I don’t know about the atmospheric conditions. They may play a more important role than I think. I simply think the Israelis are going to have to make a decision. Fish or cut bait. And if they cut bait, that means they’ve given up. And you know, President Trump said under no circumstances can the Iranians enrich any uranium. Well, that’s not going to happen. That’s obvious. The Iranians have already made that abundantly clear.

Then he says they may never have nuclear weapons. Well, the Iranians say they have none. And there’s a lot of evidence to support the truth of that statement. But that doesn’t change the Israeli obsession with Iran. And Israel feels that Iran is an existential threat. I don’t see that that changes with the potential for peace in Gaza at all.

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: One last thing about Tomahawks, if I may. Here’s a very serious President Putin talking about it quite recently. Chris, cut number five.

VIDEO CLIP BEGINS:

PRESIDENT PUTIN: It’s dangerous. As for the Tomahawks, it’s a power arm, perhaps not the most modernized, but it’s powerful, poses serious threat. This will not change in any way the balance of powers on the battlefield. The fundamental issues of the armed forces of Ukraine, no matter how many UAVs they get and no matter how many lines they create with those UAVs, without the personnel, there will be no one to lead those battles. They have to change the tactics.

Will this pose damage to our relations where we see light at the end of the tunnel? Of course. Of course. Using Tomahawks without direct involvement of the US Officers is impossible, which means a brand new stage of escalation even between, in the relations between Russia and the U.S.

VIDEO CLIP ENDS:

The Anchorage Meeting: A Missed Opportunity

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: What, if anything, was gained by the Anchorage, Alaska meeting between Presidents Trump and Putin?

COL. DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: I think initially there was the view, and I think the Russians held this as well, that the fact that President Putin and his team met with President Trump and his team was a good thing. I think we all saw that as a positive development. The problem is that it was a dialogue of the death. In other words, we didn’t listen to anything they said. In fact, I’m not even sure we understood what they were telling us because they didn’t tell us anything that we hadn’t heard before.

But then what’s even worse is that we didn’t show up with a counter proposal. We hadn’t done any homework. We didn’t walk in and say, well, we’ve studied your position. We can agree with these five points. But there are three other points where we’re looking for some flexibility, at which point in time the question from the Russian side would have been, well, tell us what these points are and we’ll talk about them. That never happened.

So at this point, we have to say it was irrelevant. It was another exercise in optics by President Trump. He put on a great show. He treats all these things as though he’s going to the Al Smith Dinner in New York City, cracking jokes and making wisecracks. That’s what he did in the Knesset. And that’s the kind of thing he likes to do. Understand that. But this is not what you do in international relations when you’re talking about issues of life or death. And that’s what we’re talking about in the Middle East. That’s what we’re talking about in Ukraine.

And I’m told that very recently, I’m trying to track this down, but that he made a statement that we would go in on the ground in Venezuela to, quote, unquote, attack drug cartels. Not sure I entirely understand what that means, but that seems a rather strange thing to mention in the midst of everything else. Wow.

Military Action Without Congressional Authorization

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: I don’t think Congress has declared war in Venezuela, but maybe that wouldn’t stop him. I mean, he’s already been blowing these boats out of the water. And you talk about visuals. He has ordered the Secretary of Defense, who calls himself the Secretary of War, to reveal video footage of the boats being obliterated.

Senator Tim Kaine, I don’t agree with Senator Kaine on much, but he’s hot on this. He’s on the Senate Intelligence Committee, so I assume he knows what he’s talking about. This is from three days ago. Chris, cut number 14.

VIDEO CLIP BEGINS:

SENATOR TIM KAINE: I think there’s a significant likelihood that in one of these first four strikes already that it was a mistake. The Coast Guard stats show one in four ships that the Coast Guard interdicts for suspicion of drug activity has no drugs on it. So there’s already a 1 in 4 chance that you’re going to stop somebody that’s going to turn out that they don’t have drugs.

So due process, laws of war, not letting this president or any president be able to put our troops in harm’s way to wage war without having that debate and vote by Congress. Donald Trump is saying, I’ve created my own secret list of groups that I’m going to target in the Caribbean. Can we see the list? No. So a secret list that he’s created, neither Congress nor the American public is seeing it and he’s taking strikes on now foreign and he’s threatening more. To me, the thought of a land invasion of another country, no matter the goal without authorization from the Congress is a constitutional anathema.

VIDEO CLIP ENDS:

COL. DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: Oh, listen, I agree 100%. The problem is that when did we debate the wisdom of going into Iraq in 2003?

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Right.

The Absence of Congressional Debate

COL. DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: We did have, I don’t know if we call it a debate as much as a series of discussions and hearings before 1991, but nevertheless, we just haven’t had much in the way of debates on anything. Judge, as you know, that’s a hugely frustrating aspect of the whole thing. I mean, why bother having a Congress if you’re not going to debate any of these issues?

But there’s something else that Americans need to understand and no one is talking about it. Venezuela is, I don’t want to say it’s brittle, but it’s fragile. And whether you like Maduro or not, he’s held the country together. Inevitably we seem to be interested in removing him and replacing him with this new Nobel Prize winner. Why she got the prize is a mystery to me. But nevertheless, she got it and now they’re talking about putting her in. The problem is I don’t think she can hold the country together.

There’s other aspect of this. Supposedly there were offers made in other channels back and forth from Venezuela to Washington that essentially would have given us access to their oil and gas reserves. It could have brought us in to do a lot of drilling, which they desperately need, could have met our requirements and apparently we categorically refused all those overtures.

The Risk of Regional Instability in Latin America

And then finally, we underestimate the extent to which this entire Latin American continent, along with Central America, could blow up in our faces. I don’t understand why no one is aware that marching into a place like Venezuela, even if you say you’re going to do or conduct surgical operations, I imagine that’s the next thing they’ll talk about, could infuriate millions of people all over Central America.

As it is, we’re already listening to people in the drug cartels down in Mexico threatening to kill Americans wherever they find them. There is a great deal of blatant hating, hate, animosity and antipathy for us. This is not going to help our case down there. In other words, I just don’t see any benefit to it. Right. There isn’t even a debate. And I, you know, like you, I’m not a Kaine fan, but he’s effectively correct.

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: He’s on another campaign which is to, and on this I fully agree with him, rescind the authorizations for use of military force from the George W. Bush era.

COL. DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: Oh, absolutely.

Repealing Open-Ended War Authorizations

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Because Presidents Barack Obama did this, Donald Trump did this, will rely on the open ended language in these. Here he is again in the same interview, but now talking about these AUMFs. Number 14, Chris.

VIDEO CLIP BEGINS:

SENATOR TIM KAINE: The Iraq war was declared by Congress in 2002, but Congress often declares a war and then just leaves the authorization on the books. And then a future president like, I want to do something in the Middle East. Oh, you know what, here’s this authorization out there. I can say it’s justified by that and that Congress authorized it, but as far as I know, it’s going to be the first time in the history of the United States that Congress actually repealed a war authorization that we passed, which means that a president can’t then go grab it and use it for a mischievous purpose.

VIDEO CLIP ENDS:

The Authorization for Use of Military Force

COL. DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: Well, the Authorization for the Use of Military Force not only confers essentially limitless freedom of maneuver on the White House to attack when and where they care to and attack whomever they don’t like. It’s worse than that. It legitimates huge numbers of additional flag officer billets. In other words, more admirals and more generals and more headquarters.

And this is something, of course, that the Department of Defense, now the Department of War, loves. And that was written into the original Authorization for the Use of Military Force. There are other provisions in there that allow for expenditures.

The bottom line is that the authorization for the use of military force should go away. Absolutely. As soon as possible. But whenever anybody brought that up, whether it was the Obama administration or President Trump’s first administration, everybody sort of shrugged and said, well, there’s no real interest in doing that.

Well, if you look at some of the provisions and the freedom of action that it grants, I guess that makes sense, but it’s not in the interest of the American people.

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Colonel MacGregor, thank you very much, my dear friend. A great, fascinating conversation which covered all of the hot topics of the day and the week. And I truly appreciate it. Thank you for accommodating my schedule, my dear friend.

COL. DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: Well, listen, you have a great trip and come back safely to us.

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Thank you. Thank you, Colonel. See you soon.

COL. DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: Bye bye.

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Bye bye. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.

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