Col Doug Macgregor: Restoring U.S. Russia Relations Are Trump's First Job (Video)

In this 17 August 2025 published video, host Daniel Davis talks with Col. Douglas Macgregor.

Doug’s central argument is that Europe’s red lines regarding Ukraine are unenforceable without U.S. military power, which makes them effectively meaningless. The speaker stresses that this reliance on American troops is unfair, unsustainable, and not something the American public supports. According to him, 99 percent of Americans would reject the idea of committing U.S. forces to defend European-imposed boundaries in Ukraine.

He recalls that Trump, in 2020, understood the need to pressure Europe to take responsibility for its own defense, but has since drifted from that position. Instead, Trump has become too focused on secondary issues like EU trade deals. The speaker believes Trump must return to his original instincts: NATO’s European members will never spend sufficiently on defense or commit troops to Ukraine unless the U.S. withdraws its support. He argues the only way Germany and other states will act is if America leaves.

The costs of maintaining around 100,000 U.S. troops along Ukraine’s border, and broader NATO commitments, are described as unrecognized by Trump. The speaker insists Trump should openly state what America’s true strategic interests are. If Trump tried to claim that destroying Russia in eastern Ukraine was in America’s interest, he would be “laughed off the stage” because ordinary Americans don’t care about that outcome. He also points out that no European populations are volunteering en masse to fight Russia either.

In his view, Trump should approach any meeting with Putin not by promising a “deal,” since no acceptable compromise exists that Europe would endorse, but instead by acknowledging reality: the U.S. has reached its limit and wants to normalize relations with Russia. Normalization, he argues, is the most important strategic outcome at this stage, though it is opposed by neoconservatives and globalists in Washington, New York, and London who want to keep Ukraine as a “permanent open wound” to block U.S.-Russia rapprochement.

Macgregor stresses that this war is fundamentally a European issue, and that Trump should insist Europeans—Macron, Starmer, Scholz, Zelensky—negotiate directly with Putin without relying on U.S. troops or funding. America should pull out militarily and stop being dragged toward a direct war with Russia. He rejects NATO’s Article 5 obligation, likening it to the rigid alliance system that caused World War I, where entanglements triggered global conflict.

Finally, he argues that once the U.S. disengages, Europe will eventually follow, bringing an end to the war sooner rather than later. He concludes that the worst outcome from Trump’s Alaska meeting with Putin would be a perpetuation of the war and further suffering for Ukrainians. The best outcome, in his view, is for Trump to have the courage to say the war is not America’s responsibility, normalize relations with Russia, and force Europe to handle its own affairs.

https://youtu.be/1PX4hFFwIDc