Fox News Guest: We Should ‘Absolutely’ Let Vladimir Putin Just Take the Portion of Ukraine it Wants

Retired Colonel Doug MacGregor believes the best course of action in the ongoing conflict in Eastern Europe is not to get involved. What’s more, he ostensibly suggested Ukrainian troops lay down their guns, retreat, and let Vladimir Putin have a large portion of Ukraine.

Macgregor appeared on Fox News Sunday night and was asked by host Trey Gowdy to opine on the best course of action for the United States in dealing with this unfolding conflict.

The retired colonel said he is unsure what Putin wants to do with eastern Ukraine “whether he forms another republic, annexes it into Russia because historically it has been Russian,” but claimed he is “happy” to leave western Ukraine as a neutral state.

MacGregor then took Gowdy by surprise by suggesting Putin is only aggressing due to weapons accumulated at the Ukrainian border, arguing that the U.S. should not supply Ukraine with any military aid, and claiming without citing evidence that Putin does not intend to move troops westward.

Gowdy pushed back, saying: “I am not a military expert, I’m not even an expert on geography, but if he takes Ukraine and Ukraine abuts Poland, then he’s going to have a NATO country abutting him. So if that’s what he doesn’t want, then isn’t he going just have to keep going until he runs out of NATO countries?”

Macgregor reiterated that Putin “has no interest” in heading west of the Polish border.

“We’re imputing to him things that he does not want to do in our usual effort to demonize him and his country,” he said. “We need to remember that Ukraine is fourth from the bottom of 158 countries in the world as corrupt. Russia is perhaps three or four places above them. This is not the liberal democracy, the shining example that everyone says it is, far from it, Mr. Zelenskyy has jailed journalists and his political opposition.”

He added that the U.S. should stay out of the war, saying, “We should stop shipping weapons and encouraging Ukrainians to die in what is a hopeless endeavor.”

“So when you say stay out of it, you mean no sanctions, no military aid, just let Russia take the portion of Ukraine they want to take?” Gowdy asked.

“Yes. Absolutely,” he replied. “I see no reason why we should fight with the Russians over something that they have been talking about for years; we simply chose to ignore it.”

In the following segment, a gobsmacked Jennifer Griffin, Fox News’ national security correspondent, vigorously fact-checked MacGregor’s “apologist” claims about Russian Putin’s goals in Ukraine.

“I just heard your last guest, and I feel like I need to correct some of the things that Colonel Doug Macgregor just said,” Griffin told host Trey Gowdy. “And I’m not sure 10 minutes is enough time to do so because there were so many distortions in what he just said, and talking about the west and NATO vilifying Putin and sounding like an apologist for Putin.”

Griffin has become a reliable fact-checking voice of reason on Fox News, pushing back on false or half-baked political rhetoric that is not factually based and designed only to mislead for political gain.

MacGregor was nominated by former President Donald Trump to serve as ambassador to China, but after disparaging comments about immigrants came to light, he instead took a role as “Senior Advisor to the Acting Secretary of Defense,” to then-Acting Secretary of Defense.

Watch above via Fox News.

Additional reporting for this post was contributed by Katherine Huggins.

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