Douglas Macgregor

Douglas Macgregor was brought on as senior advisor to Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller following a wave of Pentagon firings in November 2020. Described by Liz Cheney as part of the “Putin wing of the GOP,” Macgregor has appeared on Russia Today, where he asserted that Eastern Ukrainians are “Russians,” and has called Ukrainian President Zelensky “a puppet.” Macgregor is a senior fellow with The American Conservative, a Project 2025 Advisory Board member. Macgregor has argued that it is “time to reexamine U.S. investment in ‘allies’ that are doing too little to secure their own sovereign interests.”

Macgregor’s frequent interviews on Tucker Carlson “put him on the radar of then-President Donald Trump, a Fox superfan who often hired staff based on their turns on the network.” In July 2020, Trump nominated Macgregor to serve as the U.S. Ambassador to Germany, although his nomination stalled in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee after revelations of his controversial remarks, including but not limited to calling Vergangenheitsbewältigung, the collective process of Germans repenting for Nazism and the Holocaust, a “sick mentality,” and claiming that “Muslim invaders… [want to] eventually turn[] Europe into an Islamic state.” He has also claimed that “the only solution [to the immigration problem] is martial law on the border, putting the United States Army in charge of it… You need robust rules of engagement. That means that you can shoot people as required if your life is in danger.”

On November 11, 2020, a Pentagon spokesperson announced that Macgregor had been hired to serve as senior advisor to the Acting Secretary of Defense, a post he held for less than three months. This was during a week of chaotic and rapid turnover in the Pentagon, in which four senior officials were fired or resigned, including Defense Secretary Mark Esper who was fired in a tweet by President Donald Trump, Esper’s chief of staff and the top officials overseeing policy and intelligence. Per CNN, the White House-directed purge at the Department of Defense may have been “motivated by the fact Esper and his team were pushing back on a premature withdrawal from Afghanistan that would be carried out before the required conditions on the ground were met, and other pending security issues”. Macgregor was instructed by the White House to “get us out” of Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Germany, and Africa.

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Macgregor has argued against sanctions against Russia. He has foreshadowed a change in the U.S. commitment to NATO stating, “old alliances may vanish” and arguing that it is “time to reexamine U.S. investment in ‘allies’ that are doing too little to secure their own sovereign interests.” He also recently posted on X that “Trump needs a new circle when he assumes office. Anyone from inside the beltway is poison and part of the problem.”

Macgregor is currently a senior fellow with The American Conservative (TAC), an Advisory Board member of Project 2025 - TAC’s own advisory board includes Tucker Carlson and former Trump Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Macgregor is also the CEO of Our Country Our Choice, a far-right group that claims to be nonpartisan but was founded by “RJ, a devoted Christian and father, who had ‘never experienced such profound disappointment in [his] life’” when Trump lost in 2020, after he had invested so much of his money, time, and energy. With a foundation in “God, Country, and Family,” the group aims “to provide the American people with a platform to raise their voices” by “creat[ing] the most extensive group of American activists ever assembled.”

Macgregor is also a 2020 election denier, posting on March 16th, 2024: “from time to time throughout history we have had problems with election integrity, whether it was elections that were rigged or where there was substantial cheating… today is different. We have the problem with automation, online computers, a number of different methods that are very hard to track and control. This is by design.” This language mirrors the Fox and Trump claims about the 2020 election and defamatory statements about Dominion Voting Systems that led to a $787.5 million settlement with Fox.

Macgregor has also pushed the white supremacist “great replacement theory,” asserting falsely to Carlson’s Fox audience that George Soros “has funded or helped fund these massive migrations out of Central America,” which has led to “massive criminality” flowing into the United States from Mexico. Macgregor has also called those who live in urban areas and rely on food stamps the “underclass” and promoted the myth that white Irish slaves outnumbered African slaves in the late 1700s in America. He has also opposed racial diversity programs in the military, and criticized allowing women in combat forces.