- 5/5/2025
🎖️ In this powerful Deep Dive episode, Col. Doug Macgregor joins Daniel Davis to break down the collapse of peace efforts in the Ukraine conflict 🕊️➡️🔥 and Russia’s new battlefield focus.
Get expert insight on:
🛑 Why peace talks are failing
🎯 Russia’s strategic shift on the frontlines
🧭 What this means for NATO and the West
🕵️♂️ How Ukraine is responding under increasing pressure
🌐 The global implications of prolonged war
💥 Unfiltered military analysis you won't hear in mainstream media.
👇 LIKE 👍 | SUBSCRIBE 🔔 | and COMMENT your thoughts.
#DougMacgregor
#DanielDavis
#UkraineWar
#RussiaUkraine
#PeaceTalks
#BattlefieldUpdate
#NATO
#UkraineCrisis
#Geopolitics
#MilitaryStrategy
#DeepDive
#WarAnalysis
#ColMacgregor
#PutinStrategy
#RussiaOffensive
#UkraineFrontline
#USForeignPolicy
#GlobalTensions
#MilitaryExperts
#EndTheWar
Get expert insight on:
🛑 Why peace talks are failing
🎯 Russia’s strategic shift on the frontlines
🧭 What this means for NATO and the West
🕵️♂️ How Ukraine is responding under increasing pressure
🌐 The global implications of prolonged war
💥 Unfiltered military analysis you won't hear in mainstream media.
👇 LIKE 👍 | SUBSCRIBE 🔔 | and COMMENT your thoughts.
#DougMacgregor
#DanielDavis
#UkraineWar
#RussiaUkraine
#PeaceTalks
#BattlefieldUpdate
#NATO
#UkraineCrisis
#Geopolitics
#MilitaryStrategy
#DeepDive
#WarAnalysis
#ColMacgregor
#PutinStrategy
#RussiaOffensive
#UkraineFrontline
#USForeignPolicy
#GlobalTensions
#MilitaryExperts
#EndTheWar
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00on the battlefield we may already have passed the point past tense where there was any chance to
00:05have a negotiated settlement that was on any terms that would be acceptable to both sides
00:09that was maybe always a bridge too far but it was something at least president trump was trying to
00:14do but there was an issue going on from the beginning that he had a chance to offload this
00:20before it became his war he said so many times here in recent last couple of weeks especially
00:25that this was biden's war it's not anything i started it wouldn't happen if i'd have been involved
00:30but i'm going to get it solved here we have been saying that there's a chance for him to successfully
00:35do that and we've had colonel dougus mcgregor on several times giving him the formula for how he
00:41would be able to avoid having it be on his watch but i believe doug we are now past that point it is
00:47now firmly in in donald trump's uh ownership well i think it is in the in the sense that people in
00:54the united states will see it that way unfortunately those that care but the truth is we are non-players
01:02in this operation and donald trump's uh sort of scoring win with uh zelensky and signing on for this
01:11mineral access is you know an empty victory that will vanish with zelensky let's be frank
01:20and i think zelensky is scheduled to vanish the second thing is that it promised as a matter of
01:27reciprocity american military assistance you know that went that went over like a lead balloon in
01:33moscow they didn't miss it president putin brought it up it's it's another catastrophe because to this
01:42point we have been talking to the russians about a neutral ukraine which would not involve
01:48any military assistance from the united states or nato so i think the opportunity to close this out
01:55in a dignified manner to finally extricate the united states from what is really being an atrocity
02:02this entire war has been lost so i don't know what will happen next except that i think it'll be
02:09decided as we've always said by the russians and and look i think that there was a there was a real
02:14possibility of at least getting the united states out of this and by extension if the u.s did what
02:20you suggested several times on our show over the last couple of months that he should just cut off
02:25the the supplies withdraw american forces and say we're out of this you guys have to figure this out
02:30that sounded draconian and mean i guess if you even want to use that term on the surface of it
02:35but i think that practically speaking that was the absolute most moral effective thing that trump could
02:41have done even though it would have gotten a lot of people unhappy at the beginning but then the war
02:46could be coming closer to an end and the killing actually stopped which was his objective but
02:50instead after making some comments i think it was on the the 18th or or 20th of uh of april the trump
02:58administration officials started saying more and more we're going to end this war uh we're we have days
03:03left to get this done and if it doesn't work then we're willing to walk and it looked like trump was
03:09actually going to do that but that didn't happen and this past weekend on uh meet the press uh trump
03:15was as pointedly about that very issue the secretary of state told me this is a very critical week
03:23are you any closer to reaching a peace agreement between ukraine and russia i hope so uh how would
03:29you i do believe we're closer with one party and maybe not as close with the other but how long do you
03:37give both countries before you're going to walk away well there'll be a time when i will say okay
03:43keep going keep being stupid when does that come uh are you close to it sometimes i get close to it
03:51and then positive things happen okay so i uh i hope it gets done yeah that i tell you doug i got some
04:00concerns about this so-called positive things that have been happened but but what do you make of his
04:05answers there about when will this point come well he should simply say that we've already done all
04:13that we can and uh there is no willingness on the part of mr zelensky to arrive at any sort of solution
04:21zelensky wants the impossible he wants the russians to essentially withdraw from
04:27ukraine uh give back crimea get on their knees and beg forgiveness of zelensky well that's absurd
04:36that's not going to happen it's it's absolutely insane and that's what the president should say
04:42this notion of sitting there and saying well you know maybe then somehow okay something good happens
04:50here and now and again it's a waste of his time we have interests but they are not in ukraine we have
04:57an interest in stability and peace and end of the conflict we will support that but zelensky doesn't
05:05want that if he refuses to do that then we're out and he should get us out we don't need to be there
05:13we don't need to waste any more time money or resources on ukraine we already have the inspector
05:19general telling us that 50 percent of everything we've sent has effectively been lost in corruption
05:25you know you we're finding members of the drug cartels their armed elements walking around with
05:32javelin missiles what else do we have to do before we finally say enough so i i don't know who is advising
05:40the president but he's not getting good advice so we look like a teenager on tiktok that you know we
05:45go through one video oh that's nice no we don't like that we go to another one you know this is not the
05:51art of the deal the international relations don't lend themselves to transactional outcomes the art of
06:00the art of diplomacy is the art of the possible if it's not possible we should walk and be done with
06:07it because in the final analysis we have no vital strategic interest in ukraine and you know you
06:14you mentioned the point there the very very poignant question i don't know who's advising him well
06:19apparently mike waltz is no longer advising him so that's that's off the table but now then just some
06:25didn't make a lot of the mainstream media news but there was some news come out here uh this one this
06:31here is from the i believe it's the the kiev independent uh where a pastor went to apparently
06:37trump's personal pastor went to ukraine and was given a briefing and he comes back and says that
06:45the u.s will not turn its back on ukraine and uh he goes on to say in this article that that he was
06:50taken to the battlefront and showed many of the atrocities of the russian federation there was a time
06:56doug you may recall uh shortly after that debacle in late february in the white house in the oval
07:01office when zelinski got to a shouting match with the president the vice president and he's made a
07:06comment in there have you been to ukraine come and we'll show you the situation now i know some
07:11people in the administration that said it's absurd that he's not gonna trump is not going to go to
07:16ukraine to see that to see the dog and pony show that vice president vance correctly pointed out
07:20but this pastor did and he's a pastor he's he may be a wonderful human being but he knows nothing
07:28about international relations and was absolutely played and was shown all these things and he
07:33believes them all then he goes back and there's a picture of him on air force one with trump as it
07:38appears where he's got his ear and then he tells him and they sing and then things start to happen
07:43after that fact and it it just looks to me you talk about a tiktok situation it looks to me like
07:49trump allowed this pastor to talk him into something to change his idea from what he was
07:53saying on the 18th of april well i'm not entirely surprised because president trump unfortunately
08:01has frequently been most influenced by the last person who spoke to him and he's far too emotional
08:09and showing him pictures of dead children or something like that has a profound impact that's one of the
08:17ways that we got involved in syria with the various missile strikes they the rationale for them were
08:23was entirely illicit and bogus but nevertheless we he reacted in such a way what's interesting to me is
08:31that he reacts in this fashion to what is clearly staged in ukraine ukrainians have become masters with
08:38a lot of help from the west at staging atrocities staging massacres things that they actually executed
08:47themselves buka being the the best example but apparently gaza doesn't penetrate the mass murder and
08:56expulsion of people from gaza now mass murder through starvation something which the nkvd practiced for two
09:04decades killing millions inside the old soviet union that seems to be the practice now in israel
09:11that doesn't penetrate that doesn't even make it into the mainstream media and as a result president
09:17trump doesn't seem to be in the in the least moved by those facts uh you know it's it's beyond me it's
09:24just frankly the whole thing is amateur hour there's nothing professional about anything happening
09:30in the white house or inside washington these days so let's let's talk about some of the ramifications
09:36of this on the other half of this equation from the russian side so we had the the phone call with
09:42trump and putin we've had the multiple i think three different visits from steve whitkoff to putin
09:48and they're you know saying that they're they're close to a situation you may recall it was now more
09:52than two weeks ago that whitkoff said i think we're really really close to having an agreement that both
09:57we and the russians agree to and then we need to see if we can get zelinski and europe on board etc
10:01but then there's been some changes since that time there was in just the last few days uh an agreement
10:08and i don't know if this was exactly after or before this pastor went to to ukraine but now all
10:14of a sudden we're given a 350 million dollar support package for f-16 training support which
10:20obviously has nothing to do with uh in finding a negotiated settlement there is a um let's see it was
10:27a 50 million dollar deal for other military aid uh there was a new air defense missiles from patriots
10:33that have been now offered in there so all of this looks like we're increasing our aid now if you're
10:38on the russian side of this and you've been talking to the white house and the administration on coming
10:43to a negotiated settlement that understands the uh the core core causes of this as the russians put it
10:50if trump started off by saying hey i understand that you know nato was a big issue that's one of the
10:55reasons they went to war etc but now all of a sudden you see this are we closer or further away from
11:00having an agreement well first of all i'm not sure that president trump understands the implications
11:06of such a an aid package uh i i don't know how much he knows about it i mean obviously the people
11:15in washington that are tied to the defense industries are going to cheer this on because
11:20this means money once again for the american defense establishment defense industrial
11:26establishment uh but it's it's effectively spoils any opportunity that we have to normalize our
11:35relations with russia and i thought normalizing relations with moscow was something that president
11:42trump wanted to achieve it's in the interest of everyone for us to have normalized relations with
11:48the the russians so again this is all very disappointing but if you're a russian watching
11:54this if you're president putin you sort of shake your head but this is not really a surprise because
12:01remember just a few weeks ago president putin warned the leaders of russia's economy and industrial
12:10capacity that he didn't expect anything positive from the west he didn't expect any sanctions to be
12:17lifted he didn't seem to think that the people that are in charge are ultimately in charge in other
12:24words that the whatever we see is a government is a facade behind which there are other more powerful
12:30forces and i i don't know what you call those donors billionaire oligarchs whatever that are actually
12:38making the decisions and this just tends to confirm his suspicion and his point to to the people in his
12:46country who are involved in the private sector was very straightforward we have to become increasingly
12:51self-reliant and we have to turn our attention to other markets in asia uh beyond the united states to
13:00the global south because the united states and europe are just not reliable partners anymore and i think
13:08that's what he's concluding now you know there's a there's this thought out there that moves like
13:15this like the air defense missiles the f-16 etc is to and zielinski is the biggest cheerleader of this
13:21and it's echoed by many in europe is that we just got to put more pressure on russia that's the big
13:25problem trump hadn't been putting enough pressure on because that'll bring trump or putin to his knees
13:31i i want to show you a video that was released uh in russia it was actually released this morning
13:36but it came was on the 30th where putin was talking to actually a group of children in russia but he's
13:43explaining to them the core of who russia is and how much they're willing to sacrifice when i said
13:49that this is a holiday for practically every one of our families it is only natural because with such
13:56enormous losses 27 million people for the entire soviet union the exact number still not fully counted
14:03but it is clear that nearly every family was affected and it is extremely important to use
14:14modern opportunities to convey this information this truth about the past in this case about the great
14:21patriotic war and its heroes to pass it on to both today and tomorrow only by understanding the price at
14:30which our today and our tomorrow was secured only by grasping the cost and the deeds of our ancestors
14:38our fathers grandfathers even great grandfathers grandmothers in defending the motherland only by
14:46realizing the sacrifice it entailed can we comprehend who we are where we came from and what our country truly
14:54is see that i mean he's he's saying something that other experts i've talked to said that's that's not
15:01just for show that that's what he actually believes and certainly that the the historical record is black
15:07and white that the russians have suffered egregiously in the past and yet they don't take their eye off of
15:13their objectives when they feel it's an existential threat so do you think that issues like these with
15:18this uh f-16 deal air defense and these other kind of things are going to pressure puttin into changing his objectives
15:25well obviously not when i was in moscow in 2001 in the nkvd archives that those are the archives of
15:33the secret police were still open i was told by members of the general staff college that briefed us
15:41that they had counted 39 million 900 000 dead and we're still counting so i i think the numbers are
15:50far worse than what uh president putin mentioned and in fact to his credit he said they were still
15:56counting uh it's it's it's a tragedy on a scale that we cannot even begin to imagine but throughout
16:03russian history certainly going back to the the 10th century when you have this russian state that forms
16:11uh around initially what we call the kiev and rus and the principalities that spring from all of that
16:20the russians have always fought to retain their freedom of action in other words to ensure that
16:27that they were not blackmailed that they were not actively suppressed or harmed and remember they
16:33went through mongol invasions and mongol occupations that lasted for three centuries
16:38i i don't think most americans can even begin to imagine what that was like nor nor should they at this
16:46point but my my basic point is that president putin is not going to allow russia to be bullied into a
16:53corner and that's why russia has built bridges not only to china but to the global south to nations in the
17:01middle east in the near east the indian subcontinent latin america all of these bridges are for a reason
17:09as an alternative to dependence upon and and particularly to avoid the bullying of the west
17:19that's what he's about he doesn't want russia to be dependent upon us he doesn't want russia
17:25to be bullied by us and unfortunately this latest decision to send more military aid to ukraine just
17:32reinforces the wisdom of his strategy to date so there's no chance no possibility whatsoever of
17:40russia breaking under the pressure of sanctions or this other nonsense what is far more serious in my
17:46judgment will be the readiness of the russians to respond very very violently towards us in the future
17:53in other places and particularly i think in the middle east and about iran you know one thing doug i
18:00think we have to admit uh is that as strong as the administration i mean it was everywhere from trump
18:07himself rubio uh the vice president vance uh a couple of almost three weeks ago where they really started
18:13saying this is biden's war uh we just wanted to end we could be walking within days we had tammy bruce last
18:19week say that we are no longer going to be the mediators and we're rapidly approaching the point
18:24where we're not going to do anything else etc to now all of a sudden backtracking here and and and
18:30you know i'm going to show you something just a second that he also said in that same interview on
18:33sunday frankly it's looking a lot like that zelinski has been more effective at getting trump to come over
18:40to his side than for trump to lay down the law and tell him here's how it's going to be to the latest
18:45point is here's what trump said regarding sanctions yesterday your close allies senator lindsey graham
18:52has a sanctions bill against russia if you get to that point mr president where you're prepared
18:59to walk away will you support will you sign that sanctions bill well it depends on whether or not
19:05russia is behaving toward uh coming to a peace we want a peace deal we want russia and ukraine to agree
19:12to a deal so you think you're close to a deal what will russia have to give up because ukraine
19:19there's been discussions they will have to give up some of the land russia russia all of ukraine
19:24because that's what they want all of ukraine meaning they wouldn't keep any of the land that
19:28they've claimed russia would have to give up all of ukraine because what russia wants is all of ukraine
19:36and if i didn't get involved they would be fighting right now for all of ukraine russia doesn't want
19:41the strip that they have now russia wants all of ukraine and if it weren't me they would keep
19:48going do you know yeah i don't i don't know that that was ever russia's primary objective but if we
19:54keep going down this path that may come to pass uh the kindest thing i can think of is to say that
20:01the man is deluded uh and he's placing himself in our country on a path to war with a state that's not
20:09our enemy now that is gratifying to someone like lindsey graham who watches his reelection campaign
20:17and private accounts fill up with money because he's an advocate for war in the middle east against
20:22iran and the whole world on behalf of israel and he's an advocate for war with russia come what may
20:30but that's not in the interest of the american people the american people haven't signed up for
20:35body bags and a busted budget financial armageddon the americans want peace and prosperity they want
20:43peace abroad and prosperity at home he doesn't seem to understand that we all thought that he did
20:50which is why large numbers of us voted for him but he appears to be extremely confused
20:55and uh frankly he he's he's lost the bubble so i i can't expect anything to happen now russia is
21:04certainly not going to suddenly say oh please president trump you're a great man and we want
21:09to be your friend we'll do whatever you say that's nonsense we've got to get out of this he's still stuck
21:15in 1990 you know remember washington is really versailles on the potomac but as i look at versailles in 1789
21:24frankly speaking whatever their problems they were more in touch with reality than washington dc is
21:30and if you need any more proof of what you just said especially on the russian side you know there's
21:34a couple of recent uh news items i want to put up this uh a week or i think it was exactly a week ago
21:40in brazil sergey lavrov laid out the conditions uh that he would say this is what's necessary and uh the
21:47new york post wrote that they thought they were astonished at it and they said russia shamelessly demanded
21:53that the u.s lifted sanctions and that kiev be demilitarized and they should also have added
21:58denazified because those were specifically stated by lavrov and recognize that 20 of ukraine belongs to
22:04vladimir putin-led nation as it refused president trump's push for peace this is foreign minister lavrov
22:10insisted monday that russia will accept nothing less than total victory over ukraine then there was a
22:17separate uh article out there where it was talking about the on the russian uh one of their military
22:22uh discussion boards where they say that a truth along the existing line or rather along the proposed
22:28line uh that since uh moscow kiev and washington present is differently guaranteed to be unstable the
22:35best option for a truce is the withdrawal of the armed forces of ukraine to the dneper river this is
22:42really really important they're not talking just about what used to be the june 14 conditions where
22:47it was going to be the four administrative borders now that most in russia are talking about the minimum
22:52line is the dneper river how do you read those two comments from the beginning when the ukrainians
23:01you know walked away from the negotiations in istanbul every astute observer said the same thing
23:07the longer ukraine waits to negotiate an end to the conflict the more territory ukrainians will lose
23:16and the more people will be needlessly killed well that prophecy has come true there is no particular
23:23reason at this point given the visceral hatred and hostility of the people in kiev for russia and moscow
23:31russia to negotiate any more i mean frankly as a russian viewing the regime that's in kiev right now
23:41why would the russians negotiate at all with them setting aside whether or not they're actually
23:46legitimate and i have serious doubts about that with regard to zelensky uh it's a regime that cannot
23:53be reformed it can't be changed so that means it has to be destroyed so i think that's the road that
24:00we're on right now and i it's odd to me that anyone would think particularly president trump
24:07that he in washington thousands of miles away is in a position militarily economically politically
24:16to impose a solution on the russians it doesn't make any sense it's impossible you know it reminds me
24:22the end of the second world war there were lots of people and and with good reason that were extremely
24:27upset with stalin's conquest of eastern europe but privately fdr admitted there was not a damn thing
24:35we could do about it there were 15 million soviet troops and we were not in a position to launch a new
24:41war so i i think i think we're in a position that's not too dissimilar from that except at this time the
24:49enemy is not stalin russia is not a communist state russia is not our sworn enemy by any stretch of the
24:57imagination russia is a is a potential friend and ally if we're willing to cultivate it which could be
25:05very helpful to us in the middle east and in asia and other places where we have other interests
25:11we have a bad habit of being myopic somebody once said to me years ago when i was serving in the war
25:16plans division of the army staff in the 1990s said you know doug washington is a one crisis one
25:23conflict town i think there's a lot of a lot of truth in that we we just don't have a coherent
25:30strategy so we don't look through the lens of our interests in the various regions we seem we simply
25:38treat everything that is different from us or diverges from us as the enemy and so we keep
25:46multiplying the enemies but we resolve nothing and i think that's what's happened in ukraine we
25:51haven't resolved anything because we've decided to treat russia as the enemy essentially we're the
25:57biden administration with a new face on it and that's very disappointing and i don't think that's
26:02what we voted for yeah that's i've seen more and more analogies coming in to say that this is seems
26:09like biden 2.0 uh at least in how it's turning out with regard to the russia war uh i want to look
26:15at a different aspect of this and and there has been uh increasing strident comments from zelinski
26:22whom you mentioned a second ago over the last several days uh giving more and more implied threats that
26:28he may launch strikes against moscow on may the 9th what do you think first of all do you think that
26:34that's just posturing and secondly if he tries to do it uh what kind of action might the russians have
26:41i would not i would not dismiss it as posturing unfortunately he has still received missiles
26:48and launchers that could enable him to strike at moscow and other russian cities i don't think there's
26:54any question about that this is one of the reasons why president trump has missed such an historic
27:00opportunity to develop better relations with the russians and and normalize our our relations
27:08because we've ignored this man zelinski as a as a dangerous hostile irresponsible actor on the world
27:16stage he is a danger to us he is a danger to the russians he's a danger to europe russia has no interest
27:24in invading europe that's a lot of nonsense russia does not want all of ukraine they know
27:30their own country very very well and they understand that the people in western ukraine
27:34don't want to be russians they aren't russians and they don't want to be ruled by russians
27:39this was essentially alexander solzhenitsyn's message the russians needed to give up the empire
27:47to drop all of these non-russians inside their country and and essentially become a russian state
27:54as opposed to a multinational conglomerate held together by force so he doesn't want to do that
28:00he's a follower of alexander solzhenitsyn he would like to have good relations with the ukrainians
28:06whom he views as orthodox christian slavic brothers but we've made that almost impossible because of our
28:14support for the worst elements in ukraine at this time so i i think it's a real threat and if it is
28:22carried out if it's done almost anything is possible for the russians i mean for them as you've just
28:28pointed out in his discussion of the importance of this holiday to the russian national identity and
28:35survival that he was discussing with the children then you can imagine almost anything happening now i
28:41think the last thing that he wants is to use a nuclear weapon that's not something he wants to
28:48do and and frankly why would he uh because ukraine is right on his border you don't you don't want to
28:54use nuclear weapons on your borders under any and all circumstances if you can avoid it so i don't think
28:59that's the case but just about anything else shy of a nuclear strike is eminently possible and in fact
29:07speaking of the possibility of a nuclear strike uh there was a uh documentary that was just released
29:14in in russia i think it was just yesterday on the 25 years of of putin's uh uh service to the country
29:20etc uh and so they just released it and part of that he was asked specifically about nuclear weapons
29:26they wanted to do that you and had the right to come to us and they wanted to do it and
29:34we wanted to make mistakes mistakes and no need to use weapons which we are now talking with
29:42and I think it's not necessary to pution already there are enough resources but to make
29:50So a couple of things in there.
30:02Number one, that he mentioned specifically, we will accomplish our needs as we see them, by whatever means we have the conventional needs to have it.
30:11And I perceive, and I'd like your opinion on this, that he made that comment that, well, we didn't need to use nuclear weapons in 2022.
30:17And in the future, I hope we don't, where he certainly didn't categorically deny it.
30:22And one wonders if they continue rolling on to the Dnepra River beyond these four oblasts, as that one Russian military site noted,
30:32that there will be at least a temptation in the West to say, hey, we may use tactical nuclear weapons if you keep coming to the West.
30:40How do you see that dynamic play out?
30:41Listen, only a lunatic on either side would suggest the use of a nuclear weapon.
30:50I'm sorry, because there's no such thing as a tactical nuclear weapon.
30:54We talk about this all the time.
30:56Well, it's only five kilotons.
30:58It's only nine kilotons.
30:59If you use a nuclear weapon against a nuclear armed power, the probability of rapid escalation is about 100%.
31:08Because your assumption is that the next thing that comes your way is an intercontinental ballistic missile attack.
31:15Why wait for it?
31:17So you would be inclined under those circumstances to launch first.
31:20Now, I don't think President Putin, and by the way, I don't think President Trump, neither of these men are remotely interested in using nuclear weapons.
31:32But I think what he's trying to say is that we are going to defend ourselves.
31:37We're going to defend our country.
31:39We're going to defend what is ours.
31:42I think we would do the same thing.
31:44We're very fortunate that we have not had foreign armies encroaching on our borders, certainly not since Santa Ana in 1836.
31:54And I suspect that, you know, we won't see any in the near future.
31:59But that's not necessarily the case with Russia.
32:01And so I think he was simply pointing out that the capabilities exist and the readiness to act in accordance with the interests of the Russian state's survival are clear and unambiguous.
32:17He will do what's necessary.
32:19I don't think there's any surprise in any of that.
32:22Well, let's just hope that even in this insane world that we have, that there's not that level of insanity on the Western side.
32:30And certainly there's no evidence that there's any insanity on the Russian side.
32:34Let's hope that that continues to pass through.
32:37In the remaining time we have here, I want to shift gears real quick.
32:40You mentioned at the top of the show and a couple of times in between about some of the situation unfolding in the Middle East with Israel today announcing that they're going to now completely conquer the Gaza script.
32:52I'm not sure what 19 months didn't allow them to do that.
32:55I don't know why they think it's going to work this time.
32:57But something a little bit more even disturbing was released out by U.S.
33:02Senator Fetterman, who, Gary, if you can toss that up there, he tweeted this out and said that we cannot negotiate with Iran.
33:11It's time to destroy their nuclear program and neutralize the remaining capabilities in its prophecy.
33:17I am steadfast with Israel.
33:19Provide whatever is necessary to carry this out.
33:23And, by the way, that whole thing was prompted by an article that he posted from Reuters, which says that Iran will strike back if U.S.
33:32or Israel attack, meaning they'll defend themselves.
33:35And the audacity, apparently, with that makes him think that, yeah, we just need to destroy them.
33:40What do you say to that?
33:41Well, I think this is the sort of thinking about war that would give great comfort to Stalin or Hitler.
33:50They waged wars of annihilation.
33:53We Americans have historically not done that.
33:56We did not annihilate the Confederacy.
34:00We defeated it.
34:01We did not murder everyone in the Confederacy or everyone who was a Confederate.
34:05We did not ultimately intend to do as much damage as we did in Germany or Japan.
34:12We went beyond the pale and we did too much damage, which resulted in us having to fill the strategic vacuum for 50 years after World War II,
34:21because we'd done so much damage to Japan and Germany, the natural counterbalance to the Soviet Union.
34:29And it's disappointing, but Senator Fetterman, and there has to be truth in advertising, is Jewish.
34:36I think all of the Jewish senators and congressmen, with the exception of our friend Bernie Sanders,
34:44are absolutely violent advocates for Zionism.
34:50I haven't run into any that weren't.
34:52And it's disturbing to me that they would argue for a war of annihilation against any of Israel's enemies as a matter of course,
35:03and it's something that we as Americans should support.
35:07I mean, the problem with what's happening in the Middle East today is that we are not assisting Israel in its defense of its territory.
35:15We are underwriting and supporting this greater Israel project, which is designed to expand the territory of Israel.
35:25Now, I don't know if that means that once this is over and they manage to march all the way to the Nile,
35:33absorb at least half of Syria, including Damascus and southern Lebanon, and presumably parts of Jordan,
35:39that more Jews will show up so that they will have a population larger than the 7 million or so that currently,
35:47or at least before the war, were in Israel.
35:51Perhaps that's the plan.
35:53But the point is, I don't think several hundred million Muslims, whether they are Turks or Persians or Arabs,
35:59are going to be very favorably disposed of that.
36:02So I don't know why we feel we, under any circumstances, we Americans, should support that.
36:09We're not defending Israel.
36:11We're essentially underwriting and supporting their regional military hegemony.
36:17Well, and then there's a separate issue, which actually gets me a little bit more rankled even than that,
36:22is that here is an American senator recommending, as you say, the annihilation of this opponent here,
36:29not because we're threatened, not because they have attacked us,
36:34not because there's any kind of mortal threat to the United States at all.
36:38In fact, it's just, he overtly says it, it's for the state of Israel.
36:43Why should we use the American military as a proxy force for Jerusalem?
36:48That, to me, is even more disturbing.
36:50Well, I think the answer is because big donors, the billionaire class, have committed enormous funds
36:59to gain control of the United States government and the White House.
37:04Control in the sense that their candidates that they support, who support what the donors want,
37:11are now in charge.
37:13It's that simple.
37:13And so there sits Donald Trump, who is widely touted as the best friend Israel ever had.
37:21Just go back and listen to, I think it was Mark Levin, extoll the virtues of this president
37:27who unconditionally supports whatever Israel wants to do.
37:31Or you can look at other examples on the Hill.
37:35The bottom line is, that's the answer to your question.
37:38That's why.
37:39Now, if you were to ask the American people what they really thought, I don't know what
37:45you would get for an answer, but I doubt seriously it would be in favor of a regional war in the
37:50Middle East.
37:51But the problem is twofold.
37:53First of all, most Americans, most of the time, as you know, Dan, don't pay much attention
37:57to what happens beyond the borders of the United States.
38:01They're busy trying to put food on the table to keep their families safe, to hold a job.
38:07That's problem number one.
38:10Problem number two, those who do look carefully at these things are probably horrified, but
38:17they've ultimately voted for the people that are going to do exactly what they don't want.
38:23And again, this goes back to President Trump.
38:25There was President Trump who ran for office, made a number of critical promises, which won
38:31enormous support.
38:32And now there's President Trump in office, who is behaving very differently and is surrounded
38:39by a very different group of people from what we would have originally imagined.
38:44That's the only way I could explain it.
38:46I would love to hear from the family members, the wives, the husbands, the parents, the brothers,
38:53sisters of the Americans that are currently pointlessly, I'll add, stationed throughout
38:58the Middle East, especially in some of these outposts in Syria and Iraq that are extremely
39:04vulnerable to any kind of ballistic missile coming from Iran.
39:07In the event, and they have, by the way, expressly claimed that if we go to war with them, those
39:12bases will be targeted.
39:14Our air defense simply cannot stop the level of attacks that could come from there.
39:18We don't have it.
39:19It's tactical only, not strategic.
39:21How many of those families would say, sure, sacrifice my son or daughter, my American service
39:26member for the habit so that Israel, who already has nuclear weapons and can defend itself without
39:33any help, that will support something like that?
39:36I mean, it's beyond the pale.
39:37And it angers me as a veteran, probably does you too, that the lives of our troops are not
39:44even considered in this.
39:45Nowhere did Fetterman worry about the potential cost to our troops that we claim to love.
39:51Well, I think Fetterman represents large numbers of people on the Hill.
39:56I mean, truthfully, they may say thank you for your service, but they feel contempt for
40:01the people that do it.
40:02I don't think that's true for President Trump, and I know for a fact that he's always been
40:07very concerned by the vulnerability of the forces that we have on the ground.
40:12That's one of the reasons he's directed the withdrawal from Syria.
40:16Now, I leave it to you and others, Dan, to tell us whether or not he's actually pulled
40:21the troops out, because we know that President Trump in the past gave orders to remove forces
40:26from an area, and those forces never left.
40:29So I don't know what the facts on the ground are, but he directed the withdrawal of U.S.
40:34forces from Syria.
40:36He ought to get them out of Iraq.
40:38There's no reason for them to be there.
40:40There hasn't been for a long time.
40:42And the Iraqi government wants them to leave.
40:45And I think we're going to discover increasingly that our forces in Jordan, and we do have troops
40:50in Jordan, are at risk because that government is very fragile.
40:54And it's not quite clear what would happen in the event of a larger war to our forces there.
41:01The bottom line is I do know that Trump cares about those things, but I'm rather unconvinced
41:07that the majority of people on the Hill are knowledgeable or care.
41:11It's callous for me to say that, but I've been looking at this now, certainly since I left
41:17the Army for about 20 years.
41:22And even before I left, I began to see a lot of evidence for this.
41:26There's much less concern than there should be.
41:29Yeah, totally agree with that.
41:31Listen, I know you're pressed for time here a little bit.
41:33But before we let you go, can you tell us a little bit about the first episode of McGregor
41:39that recently aired?
41:41How did that go?
41:42And where can people go to watch the rest of these episodes?
41:46Well, you can see this on YouTube, any of a number of different outlets, Rumble, X.
41:52It's out there.
41:53It went very well.
41:54It seems to have done well.
41:55It's piling up views, despite the fact that, of course, it's subject to the algorithms
42:01that YouTube creates to suppress people they don't like.
42:06And unfortunately, the message that we represent, which is obviously, as you and I have been
42:10discussing, an America first message, a real American first message, is not popular on YouTube.
42:18So we have to fight our way through that.
42:21And we're getting a lot of inquiries now from other networks.
42:24We'll see how it goes.
42:26We're on to our next episode, which should be out in about 10 days to two weeks.
42:31And that's on war.
42:33It's very much about what you and I are discussing right now.
42:36And then the next episode beyond that is a discussion of the so-called moral compass.
42:42Does the nation have one?
42:45That'll be one I want to watch.
42:47Yeah.
42:49So thanks very much for bringing that up.
42:51I appreciate it.
42:52And I hope people will look for it.
42:53And I know that you've posted a link to it.
42:56And I think everybody that's seen it, with very few exceptions, have been complimentary.
43:02Yeah, I thought it was great.
43:03I mean, it's really well produced.
43:05And obviously, talking about issues that nobody else is talking about.
43:08I was really impressed with that.
43:09It was great and recommend everybody go watch it.
43:13Well, thanks very much, Dan.
43:14And you're right.
43:15I got to go.
43:16Very good.
43:17All right.
43:17Thanks, Doug.
43:18We'll see you later.
43:19And we will see you guys next time on the Daniel Davis Deep Dive.
43:22Thanks so much.
43:24Right.
43:24We'll see you next time on the Daniel Davis Deep Dive.
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