🚨 Behind the headlines — a dangerous deal is unfolding.
In this special episode, Col. Douglas Macgregor delivers a blunt assessment of the new US-Ukraine mineral and security agreement — and the consequences could be enormous. 🛢️🛡️
💥 Is this really about reconstruction, or a strategic land grab?
🇷🇺 Could it provoke direct confrontation with Russia?
🧠 Macgregor unpacks what this means for U.S. credibility, NATO's future, and the balance of power in Europe.
⚠️ Bold, clear, and unfiltered. If you want to understand what’s really going on — don’t miss this.
👇 Comment below, share your thoughts, and hit that 🔔 to stay ahead of the curve.
#DouglasMacgregor #USUkraineDeal #MineralSecurityDeal #Geopolitics #UkraineWar #USForeignPolicy #GlobalPowerPlay #MilitaryAnalysis #RealTalk #RussiaTensions #WashingtonAgenda #NATO #ColonelMacgregor #WorldAffairs #ResourceWars #StrategicInterests #DeepStatePolitics #UkraineConflict #EconomicWar #USEmpire
In this special episode, Col. Douglas Macgregor delivers a blunt assessment of the new US-Ukraine mineral and security agreement — and the consequences could be enormous. 🛢️🛡️
💥 Is this really about reconstruction, or a strategic land grab?
🇷🇺 Could it provoke direct confrontation with Russia?
🧠 Macgregor unpacks what this means for U.S. credibility, NATO's future, and the balance of power in Europe.
⚠️ Bold, clear, and unfiltered. If you want to understand what’s really going on — don’t miss this.
👇 Comment below, share your thoughts, and hit that 🔔 to stay ahead of the curve.
#DouglasMacgregor #USUkraineDeal #MineralSecurityDeal #Geopolitics #UkraineWar #USForeignPolicy #GlobalPowerPlay #MilitaryAnalysis #RealTalk #RussiaTensions #WashingtonAgenda #NATO #ColonelMacgregor #WorldAffairs #ResourceWars #StrategicInterests #DeepStatePolitics #UkraineConflict #EconomicWar #USEmpire
Category
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NewsTranscript
00:00Transcribed by —
00:30Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
00:36Welcome to this special edition with Colonel Douglas MacGregor.
00:40Colonel MacGregor, thank you for joining us.
00:42You and I communicated late last night when the government revealed that it had signed a minerals agreement with potentially a security guarantee with Ukraine,
00:54and we decided we should be discussing that this morning.
00:56The U.S. is a co-belligerent against Russia.
01:00The president is surrounded by neocons who want the war to continue and by American firsters who truly want the war to end.
01:09Why a mineral deal involving United States' interest in the dirt, in the earth, in Ukraine now while we're negotiating with the Russians?
01:20I think on the one hand, you have this desperate need or perceived need to, quote-unquote, get a win for the president.
01:30And the president, who made lots of, I would say, incautious statements about the war in Ukraine, had told everyone,
01:40well, I can end this in a day. That, of course, is gone by the wayside.
01:44And now I can sit down and force these two people to negotiate with each other while that hasn't worked.
01:51And he's been trying to get Zelensky to sign on for a ceasefire.
01:55And Zelensky, of course, has been unwilling to do so unless it meets his needs, which is obviously to continue the war.
02:02So I think they decided if we can get something on paper that looks like Americans are going to benefit,
02:11in other words, somehow or another, Americans are going to get a trillion dollars worth of mineral wealth out of Ukraine,
02:18well, then the president looks like a winner.
02:21This is the transactional mentality that he's adopted.
02:25And everyone goes home happy.
02:28In truth, they're never going to see anything remotely like that.
02:31And what's even more discouraging is there is contained in this agreement the promise of American military assistance
02:38as part of the reciprocity involved with our first access to whatever mineral wealth is there.
02:46And then secondly, most of this is really about oil, gas, and aluminum.
02:50I'm not sure why we are desperate for any oil or gas that comes out of Ukraine.
02:54I would think that would go probably to Europe.
02:58As far as aluminum is concerned, I'm sure we can always use it.
03:01But the real question is, why would this president put what started out as a very good attempt
03:09to normalize relations with Moscow and to bring this war to an end has now suddenly changed horses,
03:18run back to Zelensky, who is about as reliable as the wind at this point.
03:22I mean, he is literally the captain of the Titanic, and then presenting some agreement that he signed
03:29as evidence for goodness and power and strength and glory for Trump.
03:33Makes no sense.
03:36Zelensky isn't even the legitimate lawful head of state.
03:39I don't even know if some new government wanted to come in and say, well, he wasn't the government.
03:45He was pretending to be the government.
03:47You don't have access to these materials, President Trump or President fill in the blank
03:52after Trump leaves office.
03:55But most troubling to me, and this is what piqued my interest as I was about to go to sleep last night,
04:01is the U.S. military assistance.
04:03I mean, this has got to be dead in the water for Putin.
04:06What does that mean?
04:07U.S. troops on the ground in Ukraine?
04:10Well, obviously, we don't know precisely what it means, but the fact that we are going to tie
04:15ourselves in any way, shape, or form to this dying Ukrainian state and regime presents a threat to
04:22Russia for the reasons that you've outlined.
04:24We are ultimately a belligerent in this war.
04:27Ukraine is simply the facade for our war against Russia.
04:32One would assume that President Trump understands that, and if he genuinely wants to end it,
04:37he's got to abandon it.
04:38I think if you're sitting overseas right now, wherever you are, you sort of see the
04:44United States government like a teenager on TikTok who watches for a while, slides to a
04:51new video, and then says, oh, I've changed my mind.
04:55I'm going to look at this now.
04:56There doesn't seem to be any consistency.
04:59We have a crisis of inconsistency in policy and behavior in Washington.
05:05Talk about it.
05:06I wasn't going to go there yet, but I have to now.
05:08Talk about a teenager on TikTok.
05:11Chris, put up the two full screens, one from the Iranian professor and one from Pete Hegseth.
05:19This is the Secretary of Defense of the United States to an Iranian professor, not an official
05:25of the government.
05:26We see your lethal, in caps, support of the Houthis.
05:30We know exactly what you are doing.
05:33You know very well what the U.S. military is capable of, and you were warned.
05:38You will pay the consequence at the time and place of our choosing.
05:44Is this the professor?
05:45Is this any way for the Secretary of Defense to behave when the president has his personal
06:01emissary negotiating with the foreign minister of Iran?
06:16Well, of course not.
06:19It's ridiculous.
06:20These discussions, if you want to call them even a coherent discussion, I don't think
06:24this is.
06:25But whatever you're going to talk about in terms of potential action that the United
06:29States government may take, that should be done in private.
06:33But then virtually everything that we've witnessed with the Trump administration since the president
06:39took over is a sort of unending reality TV show.
06:44There's no sense of the value of closed-door diplomacy, where you can talk frankly back and
06:52forth, and both sides can develop trust and confidence that whatever they say will not
06:58be broadcast across the airwaves.
07:01Unfortunately, we failed to do that.
07:04So we're now conducting policy in the public forum.
07:07And apparently this man, Mr. Hagseth, has decided that he's also, in addition to being
07:13the Secretary of State, or excuse me, Secretary of Defense, that he has a role in the State
07:18Department and is virtually a deputy president.
07:21He's now talking about policies that may be implemented when he is in no position to do
07:26such a thing.
07:27He's the last man that should say anything about the use of military power.
07:31And when he does speak, it is after careful deliberations by the president, the Secretary
07:36of State, and the rest of the national security team.
07:40There's no sense of it.
07:42And again, that's why it reminds me of a teenager on TikTok.
07:46Just go from one TikTok video to the next with no current span of attention that makes sense.
07:52To add to this absurdity, here is General Kellogg yesterday on Fox News boasting that the Ukrainians,
08:04not the Russians, the Ukrainians, have agreed to 22 of his points, none of which he elaborates
08:10on.
08:10Watch this.
08:11I came out of London last week, where we sat down with the Ukrainian team, with the Europeans
08:15as well, and we had 22 concrete terms that they've agreed to.
08:20What they want to, at the very first, and what they have, is a very comprehensive and permanent
08:25ceasefire that leads to a peace treaty.
08:28When I mean comprehensive, sea, air, land, infrastructure, for at least 30 days.
08:32Why is 30 days important?
08:34Because it can build to a permanent peace initiative.
08:38And the reason why 30 days is important, it stops the killing.
08:41That's what President Trump wants to do.
08:42This is the man who proposed that NATO divide Ukraine into three parts for the Russians,
08:53or excuse me, for the British, the Americans, and the French.
08:57This is more absurdity, Colonel, is it not?
08:59How can the Kremlin take this gentleman seriously?
09:02Well, I can tell you that the Kremlin does not.
09:06And that's something that I would think President Trump should be made aware of if he doesn't
09:10already understand it.
09:11Kellogg is treated in Russia as a cartoon cutout, as someone who is unworthy of any
09:19serious attention.
09:19They know about his daughter's financial commitments in Ukraine and how she and his
09:27family has enriched itself involved with what's going on in Ukraine and so-called
09:32non-governmental contacts.
09:34They don't take him seriously at all.
09:36In fact, I thought they made it very clear never to send the man back.
09:39But again, this is the sort of thing that really ruins your national standing beyond the borders
09:46of the United States.
09:47First of all, who is Kellogg speaking for?
09:50He's not speaking for the president.
09:52He's speaking for the Ukrainian government.
09:55He's essentially standing up and pitching for Zelensky.
09:58I'm not sure that's what President Trump sent him to Kiev to do.
10:02So that's the first question.
10:04The second question is, our commitments are already questioned by people.
10:09Normally, Americans keep commitments for the length of one election cycle.
10:14We're not even managing it to do that.
10:18We're keeping commitments for a week.
10:20Everything that Kellogg said is antithetical to the interests of normalization with Moscow.
10:27It has nothing to do with what President Trump and Rubio and others met the Russians to discuss.
10:33In fact, it undermines all of that.
10:36Just as Trump's own signature on this largely meaningless document that promises a trillion in mineral wealth
10:43contributes to undermining our relationship with the Russians.
10:48I mean, why would you bother with any of this?
10:51There are no rare earths to speak of in Ukraine.
10:55I don't know what they think they're going to get.
10:57And as I said, it's mostly about oil, gas, and aluminum.
11:00And the Russians have already spoken up and said,
11:02we will sell you whatever you want in terms of rare earths.
11:06And we've ignored that out of hand.
11:08None of this is in the national interest, Judge.
11:12And I'm talking about the American national interest.
11:14We look like the Keystone Cops.
11:16Right.
11:17It's time for the President to put an end to it.
11:20As if to make us look worse, here is the most sophisticated and respected diplomat on the international scene.
11:30Almost as if he's responding to General Kellogg.
11:34Chris, cut number six.
11:35If you want a ceasefire just to continue supply arms to Ukraine, so what is your purpose?
11:42You know what Kaya Kalas and what's his name, Mark Rutte, said about the ceasefire?
11:49The NATO Secretary General and the European Union.
11:51They bluntly stated that they can support only the deal which, at the end of the day, will make Ukraine stronger, would make Ukraine a victor.
12:03So if this is the purpose of the ceasefire, I don't think this is what President Trump wants.
12:08This is what Europeans, together with Zelensky, want to make out of President Trump's initiative.
12:13He sees right through all of this.
12:17Of course.
12:18You know, the sad part is that in his case with Putin, as is the case with all the Russian leadership, it's the leadership in Moscow speaks with one voice.
12:30Putin's, Putin's policy positions, conditions for a ceasefire, conditions for the end of the war, all of those things are spelled out.
12:39They've been spelled out for months.
12:41Everyone knows what they are.
12:43And everyone stays on the text.
12:45In other words, they're on the same sheet of music.
12:48President Trump needs to get control of his administration.
12:51There are too many people that are pursuing policy goals that are completely divorced from what President Trump has said repeatedly that he wants to achieve.
13:02And his number one objective was to end the war and restore relations with Russia.
13:08Now, that's where everyone should be.
13:10Obviously, that's not the case.
13:12Now, he's apparently fired Mr. Waltz from his position.
13:16Perhaps that will help, since Mr. Waltz is a strident advocate for war with everyone, frankly.
13:25That could help, but I don't know.
13:29It's interesting.
13:30It's almost as if he anticipated your advice by firing Mike Waltz, an ardent Zionist and classic neocon and aggressive war hawk.
13:43I don't know where any of this is going to go, Colonel.
13:50Switching gears a little bit, if we could.
13:53You and I watched a Japanese member of parliament on the floor of their House of Representatives address the Japanese foreign minister.
14:05And he was quite critical, and perhaps this is the Japanese perception of President Trump's tariffs.
14:13We'll run the clip, of course, with an English translation in just a minute.
14:18But it appears as though the unthinkable is happening in the modern era.
14:22Japan choosing to work with, trade with China rather than the United States.
14:30So, Chris, I don't remember the number of the clip, but can you run it, please?
14:35What the U.S. is saying is already an impossible task.
14:39The theory is already a mess, and there is no consistency whatsoever.
14:45However, if Japan were to negotiate about what they have been saying, to put it bluntly, it would be like a delinquent kid extorting someone.
14:53If Japan listens to the, and bends the other way in response to the impossible demands of bargaining and deals,
15:00it will set a bad example as a customary and historical precedent.
15:05If you get mugged and put money in their hands, the will come back to mug us again.
15:11He's not a straight partner, so he won't listen to our straight talk.
15:15Anyway, I hope that you will never give in to the American extortionists.
15:18I know it's harsh to say, but they are extortionists.
15:23That's the way the Trump tariffs are being perceived by our closest Asian outlier and our second greatest, after China, Asian trade partner.
15:36Well, remember, Judge, we have roughly 120 installations, military installations, in Japan.
15:43Wow, 120?
15:45Yes, now, they're not all giant, but there are that many installations.
15:50You're talking about intelligence installations, offices, as well as shipyards, airfields, and so forth.
15:59We have an enormous stake.
16:01How many troops are there?
16:04I'm sorry, what?
16:05I'm sorry, Colonel.
16:06How many troops are there, approximately?
16:08You know, I hesitate to say, but you're probably 30,000 or 40,000 spread across these installations.
16:13A significant number.
16:16Yeah.
16:16Well, the other thing is, and this is something that, you know, I've said repeatedly for several years now,
16:21that no one in the United States is hearing from anyone in Washington.
16:26And that is, no one in Asia is interested in going to war except us.
16:30In other words, if you go to Japan, or go to Vietnam, or go to the Philippines, or somewhere else,
16:36and preach war against China, they'll be polite to you, they'll listen to you,
16:41but they think you're out of your mind, and they have no interest in it.
16:44Everyone in Asia wants access to the same thing, the Chinese market.
16:49And China's market is vitally important to everyone over there.
16:53So you've asked them now, in the context of these tariffs, to choose.
16:57And they've chosen the Chinese market, because they can sell into it, and they can buy out of it.
17:03And they can do it all in their own currency, without using dollars.
17:07So the only thing we've done with this tariff is offended people that were formerly friendly to us,
17:14and proven ourselves to be fools because of our complete lack of consistency.
17:19I loved his statement about a delinquent child extorting someone.
17:24You know, I think the teenager with a TikTok is probably closer,
17:27because I don't think that President Trump thinks in terms of extorting anything.
17:32I think he thinks he's legitimate and justified in what he's doing.
17:36And he's done this in a blanket way.
17:38That was the problem from the very beginning.
17:41And what this man goes on to talk about, which you can hear from people like Luke Groban,
17:45or James Ricard's, or any number of other people, Jeffrey Gundlach, DiMartino Booth,
17:53all of them have talked about the ridiculous mathematics behind the decision on what the tariffs should look like.
18:00Because that's not how you arrange these kinds of things.
18:04Unfortunately, the whole administration looks like a clown show.
18:08And that's what this Japanese is saying.
18:11Let's not hitch our wagon to this crazy clown show.
18:14Let's stick with consistency.
18:16And I think that's what Americans need to understand right now.
18:19I think this is something that President Trump needs to understand.
18:22And get away from all of this nonsense.
18:25Firing people is a good way to do it.
18:27But it also depends very heavily on him and what he says.
18:30He says an awful lot.
18:32And one day it sounds, you know, attractive to some people.
18:36The next day it's horrifying.
18:37That has to end.
18:40This is very serious stuff, Colonel.
18:43Pepe Escobar, who's a regular on this show, just finished a week in Shanghai interviewing government officials, industrialists, and academics.
18:54The Chinese are firm in their determination that they can survive, thrive, and prosper without the United States.
19:02And that they will not kowtow to a 245 percent, absurd the number, tariff.
19:11And President Xi won't even call President Trump to ask for relief from this because that's out of the Chinese character.
19:19Well, you know, it's a matter of politeness.
19:23We haven't been very polite to any of these people.
19:26President Trump has never called to talk with President Xi and explain his position and what he's trying to achieve.
19:32And these people are not stupid.
19:34And contrary to popular belief, they're not evil.
19:37They're not all determined to see the death and destruction of the United States.
19:40That's a lot of nonsense.
19:41So you pick up the phone and say, I'd like my representatives to meet with yours and iron out some concerns that we have regarding trade.
19:49As you know, we have this big trade deficit.
19:51You talk to people.
19:53People listen to you and they respond to you and you work things out.
19:57We don't seem to have understood any of that.
19:59This bullying tactic of threatening people is a failure in the international system.
20:06It's a bigger failure now than at any point in our history, because we are no longer the indispensable nation in economic terms.
20:14And we need to stop talking about the use of military power all over the Middle East against everyone that doesn't like Israel or doesn't support Israel or is prepared to fight against Israel.
20:26That's not going to help matters.
20:27That's not going to help Israel, contrary to popular belief, especially when you attack Houthi tribesmen in Yemen.
20:34I mean, it's incomprehensible.
20:36These people have managed to shut down a $239 billion United States Navy.
20:41It seems completely incapable of doing a damn thing about them.
20:45Well, if you can't do anything about them militarily, what are you going to do?
20:49Talk to them?
20:51Is that possible?
20:53There's no sense of diplomacy, no strategy.
20:56Everything's impulse driven.
20:59Harry Johnson reports that we have said.
21:02We're going to do this.
21:02Larry Johnson reports that the federal government has spent over $500 million in the past month and a half on drones and missiles attacking the Houthis, and they barely laid a glove on them.
21:17$500 million down the drain.
21:20I came across a clip from a retired Australian general.
21:25I wonder what you think of it.
21:26He's warning of World War III.
21:28He believes it's already started.
21:30There may be some things in here with which you disagree, but here's what he had to say.
21:35I don't know or know of this fellow.
21:37He does work for one of those think tanks at Georgetown University, so you know who funds it.
21:43Right.
21:43But here's General Ryan, cut number 10.
21:48In many respects, we're already there.
21:49I mean, I think historians in 100 years will look back and go, the Third World War started in February 2022.
21:57You know, there are many elements that are still a phony war.
22:00I mean, we saw that at the beginning of World War II, right?
22:03That's what we're seeing in the Western Pacific.
22:05You know, the Middle East has been at war for some time.
22:08It's going to be at war for a long time to come, I think.
22:10Russia has made it very clear that it has aggressive designs in the Baltics and in Scandinavia, as well as against Poland and Ukraine.
22:19So we're kind of already there, but it's a mindset that we need to have.
22:24And it's something that our Western politicians really have to contemplate hardly because they're going to have to have a different balance of domestic and foreign investment in their budgets.
22:34Now, is this worth listening to?
22:38The Defense Department budget is already a skosh below a trillion.
22:42Trump's new budget actually has it over a trillion.
22:46And I've never heard of Putin expressing designs on Poland.
22:52General Ryan suffers from the malady that is common inside the Beltway and across the Anglosphere.
22:59He lives in the world of 1945.
23:01We are not entering a so-called multipolar world.
23:06Judge in reality, what we're seeing happen now is that the world that existed before the Second World War is roaring back healthy and strong into existence.
23:17We're dealing with civilizational states like China and Japan and Russia, states that were destroyed.
23:24They've recovered.
23:25And we're behaving as though they still have an obligation to do whatever we tell them to do.
23:29And that's outrageous.
23:32At the same time, our position in the world, which was inevitably going to decline in terms of our GDP participation and economic output, is at a point right now where we are no longer the indispensable nation economically.
23:46We're a great power.
23:47And we're dependent upon trade, but we're no longer in a position to dictate.
23:52That's the problem with all the institutions that grew up under Bretton Woods that now Bessemin says he wants to breathe new life into.
24:01Well, it's a little late because other institutions are going to emerge.
24:04People are going to do business in different ways.
24:07They are not necessarily going to follow our line.
24:09The question is, do we adapt to this?
24:13Do we become a good neighbor and cooperate where it makes sense to do so?
24:18Or do we remain belligerent and bellicose and continue to complain and threaten whenever anybody does anything we don't approve of?
24:27I think Ryan is stuck in that world.
24:29That's all he knows.
24:30That's all that most people in Washington know.
24:32If you tell them that Iran is a civilizational state in its own right, they scoff.
24:38They scoff at everyone in the world right now, thinking that they are the center and they are innately superior.
24:46And for some reason, we are now hooked to Israel in ways that put us in severe risk, certainly in the Middle East and other parts of the world, because they take a very similar position.
24:57If this were some gathering and you had just said that at the podium, I would have stood up and led the standing applause, Colonel.
25:09Brilliant analysis.
25:11Last subject matter.
25:12Are India and Pakistan on the verge of war?
25:17Well, you know, that's an important question.
25:19And I'm hearing lots of interesting things here.
25:21But I turned to some people that are actually Indian and know something about it.
25:26And I asked them and they simply pointed out to a fact.
25:31And that is that Modi and lots of people in the United States don't like him because he's, quote unquote, a Hindu nationalist.
25:37But Modi thus far has really followed the Putin model.
25:41He's exercised enormous restraint.
25:43Whenever there have been disagreements and there has been any exchange of gunfire, it's always been very, very limited.
25:49It's always been carefully targeted.
25:51And every effort is being made to avoid the very thing that everyone is worried about right now, which is open war.
25:58And there's not much evidence that either the Pakistani government or the Indian government really want to go to war to the point where it would destroy their countries.
26:07And I think that's something that we should keep in mind.
26:10So, no, I don't think an all out war is likely.
26:12I think we'll pass through this particular crisis phase.
26:16And Modi will behave as he has in the past with great restraint.
26:20I wish we would behave with more restraint.
26:24Colonel McGregor, thank you very much for your time.
26:27I know you've already spent a half an hour with us earlier in the week.
26:30But we wanted to have the benefit of your analysis of this breaking news.
26:35Deeply appreciated.
26:36Have a great weekend.
26:37Look forward to seeing you next week, sir.
26:39Sure.
26:39Thank you, Judge.
26:40Of course.
26:42And coming up later today at 2 o'clock on all of this, Colonel Larry Wilkerson.
26:47And at 3 o'clock on all of this, including China and Japan, Professor John Mearsheimer.
26:53Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.
27:10Hey, who's not a direct window to see you next time?
27:11See you next week.
27:12I'm out.
27:13Just new cities.
27:13Yeah.
27:14I'm out.
27:15Bye.
27:15I'm out.
27:16I'm out.
27:25Bye.
27:26Bye.
27:27Bye.
27:27Bye.
27:36Bye.
27:36Bye.
27:36Bye.