Fox News foreign correspondent fact checks ‘distortions’ from ex-Trump adviser she accuses of sounding like ‘an apologist for Putin’

A former Trump administration military adviser who believes there is “no reason” Russia cannot make a claim to Ukraine’s territory has received a dressing down on live TV.

Col Douglas MacGregor, who told Fox News host Trey Gowdy that Russians and Ukrainians were “indistinguishable” from one another, claimed on Sunday that Washington DC should drop economic sanctions imposed on Moscow for launching a full scale military assault on Kyiv.

“I see no reason why we should fight with the Russians over something they have been talking about for years,” said the former Trump administration adviser, “and we chose to ignore it.”

Fox News’ national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin appeared moments later and rebuked Col MacGregor, who she said had delivered “so many distortions” about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that she could not address them all in 10 minutes.

“I feel like I need to correct some of the things that Col Douglas MacGregor said, and I’m not sure that 10 minutes is enough time to do so,” she told viewers. “There were so many distortions in what he just said and talking about NATO vilifying Putin, and sounding like an apologist for Putin”.

The widely respected reporter went on to say that Col MacGregor’s comments were “kind of appeasement talk”, and that he was someone “who should know better” – especially when “he was the one who was advising Trump to pull all troops out of Germany”, Ms Griffin said.

“That projection of weakness is what made Putin think he could move into a sovereign country like Ukraine,” she continued of NATO and European readiness.

The remarks were also an apparent dig at Donald Trump, who often criticised Nato while US president but on Monday claimed he was behind a rise in military spending among European capitals. That was mainly a lie.

“I cover the news. I’ve been part of the news division since those beginning days,” Ms Griffin said. “I’m here to fact-check facts, because I report on facts. And my job is to try and figure out the truth as best as I know it.”

Col MacGregor was not the first person to be schooled by Fox News’ national security correspondent, with Ms Griffin also clarifying comments made by the channel’s own hosts. That includes anchors for The Five, who claimed last week that President Joe Biden’s warnings about a Russian invasion of Ukraine were a bid to distract from domestic issues.

Ms Griffin told her colleagues that “every American should be watching this and knowing that this is deadly serious. This is not some wag-the-dog situation.”

Fox News has however been criticised for allowing Tucker Carlson, the host of Tucker Carlson Tonight, to continue defending Russian president Vladimir Putin and for claiming that Ukraine was “the actual threat”.