(Video: Fox News)

Fox News National Security Correspondent Jennifer Griffin rebutted Colonel Doug Macgregor (Ret) Sunday, accusing the former senior adviser to the acting Secretary of Defense of being an “apologist” for Russian President Vladimir Putin and distorting facts.

Following Macgregor’s Fox News appearance on “Sunday Night in America with Trey Gowdy” where the retired U.S. Army officer had given his assessment of the deteriorating situation in Ukraine, Griffin joined Gowdy moments later to discuss the actions that Putin has taken and to provide insight on how she had been “on point” with her analysis from the beginning.

Griffin opted to dismiss Gowdy’s prompt and instead took the opportunity to lambast the previous guest, going so far as to suggest Macgregor was defending the actions of Putin.

“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 began, heated. “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.”

Citing her more than 20-year long career with Fox News starting in Moscow which allowed her to observe Putin’s operations first-hand since 1999, Griffin didn’t understand where Macgregor had garnered his insight into the aims of Putin.

“I don’t think anyone that I’ve spoken to here at the Pentagon or elsewhere in western intelligence believes they know how far Putin wants to go,” Griffin stated. “I think that the world has seen what Putin is capable of, and to blame NATO membership for what we’ve seen Putin unleash, we’ve seen from Putin’s own words that he talking in czarist terms.”

Referencing Putin holding a 19th-century imperialist view of his standing in the world, Griffin referred to Macgregor’s statements as “so distorted that I do feel that our audience needs to know the truth.”

So what exactly did Macgregor say?

(Video: Fox News)

When asked what Putin’s endgame was, Macgregor began by stating that the Russian president was following through on threats he had been making for years. “He will not tolerate U.S. forces or their missiles on his borders,” he said, which Macgregor equated to the Bay of Pigs.

“We ignored him and he finally acted,” Macgregor added before commenting on the diminished capacity of the Ukrainian forces. He stated that the Russians could annihilate the Ukraine defense within 24 hours if they did not stand down.

Macgregor went on to point out his believed purpose for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy holding negotiations was to work out the best deal he could through a form of surrender. He asserted that the United States, by President Biden’s statements, would support a neutral Ukraine and that the best way forward is to cede all territory east of the Dnipro River.

Gowdy pushed back on Macgregor as well, stating, “I am not a military expert…but if he takes Ukraine…he’s going to have a NATO country abutting him,” suggesting he won’t stop until there are no more NATO countries.

That is when Macgregor reiterated his point that he believes Putin has no interest in moving beyond the Dnipro River and, to Gowdy’s point about not wanting NATO countries on his border, he already has that with Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. He further asserted that his economy was too small to accomplish anything on so grand a scale as Gowdy suggested.

Macgregor went on to remind Gowdy 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.”

Macgregor, who has spoken out about the lack of preparedness of the U.S. military in the past concluded that the United States should stay out of it. Gowdy, for his part, “did not understand Colonel Macgregor’s analysis that [the Russians] don’t want weapons on their border” because “if they keep taking countries, they’re going to have weapons on their border.”

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Kevin Haggerty

Staff Writer

Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn't researching current events and their impacts, you'll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.

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