A Trump appointee serving on West Point’s advisory board has repeatedly spread a conspiracy that the Biden administration is bringing in non-White immigrants as part of a “grand plan” to have them outnumber White Americans of European ancestry in the United States.
In another interview, he also attacked women serving in the military in combat roles.
The comments were made in April and May by retired Army Col. Douglas Macgregor, who was appointed to West Point’s Board of Visitors in the waning months of the Trump administration, and uncovered in a CNN KFile review of his recent comments. Macgregor also served as a senior official in Trump’s Department of Defense, where he was tasked with the US withdrawal from Afghanistan after being appointed in November 2020.
Macgregor was previously nominated to be the Trump administration’s ambassador to Germany, but his nomination failed to receive a hearing following a CNN KFile report on controversial comments on minorities, Islam, and Germany’s remembrance of the Holocaust. He graduated from West Point and served in the US Army for nearly 30 years as a decorated combat veteran before retiring as a colonel in 2004. He is a frequent radio and television commentator on national security affairs, most recently for Fox News and RT, and has published five books.
“I think they’ve got control of it,” Macgregor said on New York local radio in late April, when asked about the situation on the US-Mexico border. “There’s no question about it. But their idea of control is to bring in as many people as they possibly can, as quickly as possible, from anywhere in the world, frankly. But preferably from Latin America, the Middle East, Africa and some, some portions of Asia, but not many.”
“The idea is that they have to bring in as many non-Europeans as possible in order to outnumber the numbers of Americans of European ancestry who live in the United States. That’s what it’s all about. And I don’t think there’s any point in questioning it. That is the policy. … It is a deliberate policy to enact demographic change.”
Macgregor sits on the military academy’s Board of Visitors, which is comprised of members of Congress and presidential appointees. The board carries out inquiries into the military academy’s “morale and discipline, curriculum, instruction, physical equipment, fiscal affairs, and academic methods.” It meets several times a year and provides independent advice and recommendations to the President on the military academy. Appointments typically involve serving out a three-year term.
Susan Gough, a Pentagon spokesperson, told CNN that West Point had no say who serves on the board: “The Army has no input as to who is appointed to the USMA Board of Visitors. West Point’s responsibility is to update the Board of Visitors, not administer or appoint it.”
Macgregor did not respond to requests for comment.
White House spokesperson Andrew Bates condemned Macgregor’s recent remarks, telling CNN, “These hateful and grotesque sentiments are antithetical to the values and character of our nation and armed forces–whose standards, excellence, and professionalism are without comparison.”
“There is absolutely no place in public service for racism, for denigrating the contributions of women in the military, or for religious bigotry,” said Bates.
A White House official told CNN that Macgregor’s standing on West Point’s Board of Visitors is currently being reviewed.
Macgregor also said “a lot of criminals” were among migrants and undocumented immigrants coming into the United States, adding they would be a “burden on our economy,” who carried since eradicated diseases.
“We’re also encouraging all these worst elements to come in and camp and effectively enjoy the fruits of citizenship without earning them and without ever having qualified for them,” he said, “And I think some of you must have seen the thousands of pregnant women coming up from Latin America, so they can have their children here. And then the child immediately is declared an American citizen. And again, all of this is part of the grand plan. This is what Mr. Biden and his supporters want. They want another country. They don’t want the United States.”
In another interview in May, Macgregor blasted allowing women in combat.
“What we call diversity – in the extreme. In other words, affirmative action programs for every conceivable category of humanity that the left wants to come up with, ” said Macgregor. “Whether it’s someone who is a gender neutral or homosexual or whatever else, the left loves to put us into categories and push this. And the people that went along with it and said, ‘sure, let’s put women into the combat forces. Let’s have women everywhere.’ Let’s do whatever we want to do. We’re going to create this brave new world where everyone is the same. There are no differences, nothing matters. So I think that’s where we are.”
CNN’s Barbara Starr contributed to this report.