President Trump’s nominee to become ambassador to Germany has a history of controversial statements on race, geopolitics and use of force against civilians, according to an analysis by CNN’s KFile.
According to the report, retired Army Col. Douglas Macgregor has made multiple public statements warning against the supposed Islamization of Europe, calling for deadly force against Latin Americans on the U.S.-Mexico border and defending Russia’s illegal military involvement in Ukraine.
Trump last month nominated Macgregor, a highly decorated combat veteran with a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia, to replace Ambassador Richard Grenell, who quit the post in June.
The nomination comes at a fraught time for U.S.-German relations, as Trump has vowed to pull U.S. troops out of the country, accentuating ongoing public disdain from the president toward German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Over the course of several years and on multiple appearances on cable news, particularly Fox News, Macgregor has often criticized Germany’s welcoming of immigrants, a key Merkel policy.
Macgregor warned that Muslim immigrants enter Germany “with the goal of eventually turning Europe into an Islamic state” and criticized the country for providing welfare benefits to “millions of unwanted Muslim invaders” rather than increasing defense spending.
And Macgregor has minimized a fundamental pillar of German democracy, the idea of national atonement for crimes committed by the German state under the Nazi dictatorship in the 1930s and 1940s.
“There’s sort of a sick mentality that says that generations after generations must atone sins of what happened in 13 years of German history and ignore the other 1,500 years of Germany. And Germany played a critical role in central Europe in terms of defending the serving Western civilization. So I think that’s, that’s the problem,” said Macgregor in a 2018 podcast.
According to the KFile analysis, Macgregor’s controversial statements extend well beyond Germany.
The publication unearthed statements Macgregor made in support of Russia’s ongoing war in eastern Ukraine, where Moscow has provided support to separatists for years, weakening its western neighbor.
Macgregor went so far as to propose the division of Ukraine, a U.S. ally, to allow its eastern regions to join Russia, a U.S. rival.
“Do you, if you are living in Eastern Ukraine, want to join Russia, which appears to be the popular sentiment? If so, they should be allowed to join Russia. And at the same time, what emerges from this process up in the West and in the North, which is truly Ukrainian in terms of culture, language, history, religion, so forth, they should be allowed to have a sovereign independent Ukrainian state,” said Macgregor, according to KFile.
Macgregor also questioned U.S. policy in the former Yugoslavia, using Islamophobic language to describe U.S. intervention against the Serbian government, which was accused of tolerating and potentially supporting ethnic cleansing in the region.
“So we intervened against the Orthodox Serbs, Orthodox Christian Serbs in Kosovo and put essentially a Muslim drug mafia in charge of that country and called it a great success story for democracy,” said Macgregor.
On domestic policy, the analysis found that Macgregor has held controversial positions on use of force at the U.S.-Mexico border for years.
As far back as 2012, Macgregor said that “Mexicans with no education, no skills and the wrong culture” were being driven into the United States by drug cartels.
In 2019, he said, “The only solution is martial law on the border, putting the United States Army in charge of it and closing it off would take about 30, 40,000 troops. We’re talking about the regular army. You need robust rules of engagement. That means that you can shoot people as required if your life is in danger.”
Macgregor’s nomination is certain to be aggressively challenged by Democrats in the Senate, as the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Bob Menendez (N.J.) has already come out in opposition.
“Colonel MacGregor’s public statements over the years on immigration, Muslims, and our relationship with Germany should disqualify him for any government office, much less to represent the United States as an ambassador,” Menendez told CNN.