OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Tucker Carlson appeared to take a swipe at a fellow Fox News reporter Jennifer Griffin who has been “fact checking” the pundits on her network during the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
As he introduced Colonel Doug Macgregor, who was recently fact checked by Griffin, Carlson swiped at “so-called reporters you see on television” who act “secretly as a flack for Lloyd Austin at the Pentagon.”
It came after the host warned that a war with Russia “would be a legitimate disaster no matter what the outcome would be.” And, he cautioned his viewers, to “be very wary of what you hear. There is an awful lot of lying going on, an unprecedented amount of lying.”
“We always start with retired Colonel Doug Macgregor. Unlike so many of the TV generals you see all day long, McGregor is not angling for a board seat at Raytheon. Unlike so many of the so-called reporters you see on television, he is not acting secretly as a flack for Lloyd Austin at the Pentagon. No, Doug Macgregor is an honest man. So we’re gonna start, in place of a long script tonight, with a conversation with Doug Macgregor about what is actually going on in Ukraine,” he said.
It came after McGregor appeared on “Fox News Sunday” he spoke to host and former Congressman Gowdy about the best action that the United States could take to deal with the conflict, Mediaite reported.
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,” the retired colonel 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.”
“We should stop shipping weapons and encouraging Ukrainians to die in what is a hopeless endeavor,” he said.
“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?” the former Congressman said.
“Yes. Absolutely,” the retired colonel responded. “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.”
Griffin was taken aback by his comments.
“I just heard your last guest, and I feel like I need to correct some of the things that Colonel Doug Macgregor just said,” she said. “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.”
