Fox reporter admonishes former Trump adviser suggesting US 'stay out of' Ukraine-Russia conflict

Fox News correspondent Jennifer Griffin forcefully pushed back on comments made on the network Sunday night by retired Army Col. Douglas Macgregor, an ex-Pentagon official in the Trump administration, suggesting the West should not involve itself in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

"This is not the liberal democracy, the shining example that everyone says it is," Macgregor said of Ukraine Sunday evening while appearing on Fox. "I think we need to stay out of it. The American people think we should stay out of it, the Europeans think we should stay out of it. And we should stop shipping weapons and encouraging Ukrainians to die in what is a hopeless endeavor."

When pressed on if he believes Russia should not be sanctioned and should be allowed to invade and annex Ukraine, Macgregor said, "Yes, absolutely."

"I see no reasons why we should fight with the Russians over something that they have been talking about for years, we simply chose to ignore it," he said. "We will not send our forces to fight, but we are urging Ukrainians to die pointlessly in a fight they can't win. We're going to create a far greater humanitarian crisis than anything you've ever seen if it doesn't stop."

Griffin, a veteran correspondent who has covered defense and diplomatic issues for years, shot down Macgregor's assertion when she appeared on the same program minutes later.

"There were so many distortions in what he just said," Griffin said. "To blame NATO membership for what we've seen Putin unleash and what we've seen from Putin himself he is talking in Tsarist words ... what he just said was so distorted that I do feel that our audience needs to know the truth."

Sunday's rebuttal was not the first Griffin has leveled against statements made on her own network about the developing crisis in Eastern Europe.

On Thursday, The Washington Post noted that Griffin, during an appearance on "The Faulkner Focus," shot back at host Harris Faulkner for attacking President Biden over his handling of the crisis, saying, "We've had general after general tell us that the sanctions were not going to work because they were already baked into the cake and assets already put into place. So when you say, 'We saw this coming. They saw this coming,' I'm just wondering why that was still the only strategy deployed."

Fox News's top-rated host, Tucker Carlson, for example, has received steady criticism for his opining about Russian President Vladimir Putin and the war he has waged on Ukraine, suggesting the United States has little to gain from involving itself in the crisis overseas.

"If she reports something on air, it's because she's done hard work off-camera to determine the facts of the matter and present what's true," Stephen Hayes, a former Fox contributor who now works at another network, told the Post. "I suspect she has little patience with Biden-focused conspiracies or commentary that pretends these challenges started in January 2021."

Griffin said during a recent interview on "MediaBuzz," another Fox program, fact-checking statements made even on her own network are an essential part of her job function.

"My role is no different than it's been since I joined Fox in 1996 in Moscow," she said. "I cover the news. I've been part of the news division since those beginning days. 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. I share those facts internally, so that our network can be more accurate. That's what I've always done. There's nothing different than what I've been doing for the last 20 years working at Fox."