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Transcript of Col. Douglas Macgregor: Does Trump Understand the Russians?

Read the full transcript of retired colonel and political commentator Col. Douglas Macgregor’s interview on Judging Freedom Podcast with Judge Napolitano on “Does Trump Understand the Russians?”, August 7, 2025.

Introduction

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Thursday, August 7th, 2025. My dear friend and great friend of the show, Colonel Douglas McGregor joins us now. Colonel McGregor, of course, you need no introduction. Thank you very much for joining us.

I want to talk to you about what is the issue of the moment, whether President Trump and President Putin are going to get together and ultimately your view about whether President Trump understands the Russians and understands President Putin. But before we do, some other issues that I need to raise with you.

A few months ago, when President Trump, as a favorite of Prime Minister Netanyahu, ordered the Pentagon to bombard the Houthis, a bombardment that Secretary of Defense Hegseth called “a splendid victory,” it ultimately ended in no movement on the part of the Houthis at all. But that’s not my question. Did the US dangerously deplete a certain category of missiles which were used by the Pentagon in that fruitless attack?

America’s Missile Production Crisis

COL. DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: I think we’ve dangerously reduced our arsenal of missiles, period, not just the ones that were used in that attack. And of course, you’re referring to the article that we discussed earlier today, or at least I think I sent it to you.

JUDGE NAPOLITANO: Yes.

COL. DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: And what this article reveals is that we’re woefully behind in the production capacity of all these missiles. They were talking about the SM2 Block 3, which is actually an SM6 missile. Now we can produce, we think roughly 5 to 600 a year. If you’re going to do the kinds of things we are doing, if you’re going to risk war, all out war with anybody today who has any military capability at all, you need to have a production capacity that is 10 times 600.