Posted on 01/05/2018 10:34:06 AM PST by Alas Babylon!
U.S. intelligence agencies believe Russia used disinformation warfare to try to interfere with the 2016 presidential election and an American intelligence report finds that one of the weapons in the Kremlin's arsenal was its state-run news network RT, formerly Russia Today. Earlier this year, the English-language TV channel met the U.S. demand to register as a foreign agent.
In a preview of Lesley Stahl's report on "60 Minutes" this Sunday, RT's editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan discusses the allegations of Russian meddling and her network's curious connection to President Trump's former national security adviser, Michael Flynn.
MARGARITA SIMONYAN: Uh-huh.
STAHL: Which our intelligence agencies tell us happened.
SIMONYAN: And you believe them. Just like you believe that they were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Didn't you believe that? Continue to believe that Russian interference in American elections happened. In five years you will know that it didn't.
STAHL: It's also Facebook and Twitter .Say the same thing now.
SIMONYAN: Oh, what do they say? What do they say?
STAHL: They say that the Russians used their websites to perpetrate pro-Trump, anti-Hillary Clinton information.
SIMONYAN: I can't deny that there could've been Russian media that had their opinion on Twitter, on Facebook, whatever broadcast. Is that bad? Is that illegal? Isn't that what the American media do as well?...British media supported Hillary. No problem with that. No interference. Nothing. French media supported Hillary. No problem with that. Some Russian media supported Trump oh my God!
STAHL: Did RT support Trump?
SIMONYAN: No. RT did not support Trump.
STAHL: Was RT
SIMONYAN: And our fault is that RT did not support Hillary either.
STAHL: I know that.
SIMONYAN: I wanted to win somebody who would be nicer to Russia.
STAHL: Did you get that?
SIMONYAN: No. Is it even possible? We don't know.
One curiosity is RT's connection to Michael Flynn President Trump's former national security adviser who has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in the Russia probe. Simonyan invited him to RT's 10th anniversary gala in 2015.
STAHL: You paid him $45,000 to come to the event. And sat him next to Mr. Putin .It just conjures up the idea that eventually he may have been some kind of a conduit when he did get close to Trump.
SIMONYAN: Because he sat next to Putin in very
STAHL: Not because he sat next to Putin. That there was some relationship.
SIMONYAN: With Putin? Putin didn't know who he was. I give you my word on that.
Wow.... this Simonyan really knocks Stahl out of her Depends!!!
I have to pop some popcorn and get comfy for this beatdown!
Neither Stahl nor CBS mentions a ton of things.
First off, General Flynn was a commentator for RT. Why wouldn’t they pay him? Doesn’t MSNBC pay Chris Matthews? Does Fox News pay Sean Hannity?
Of course they do.
Secondly, the whole idea that a Russian news network picks a side—and that doing so is somehow wrong—is ridiculous.
Did ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC help and want Hillary to win? Of course they did!
while RT television is clearly left wing biased, it is not nearly as bad as PBS (such as “Democracy Now”.. a hard Stalinist/subversive propaganda program if ever there was one.. and it is on the air for hours at a time, on multiple PBS stations, too)
and we pay for PBS
Leslie Stalin should ask why EVERY NEWS OUTLET IN THE USA backed the hildabeast. Now that is some serious election meddling.
Russia, Russia Russia is back.
“Leslie Stalin.” That’s a great one. D
So what if the Russian media meddled in our election?
It’s not like our own US media didn’t lie, cheat and try to steal the election.
Besides - with Hillary all but promising a war with Russia - Russia had very good and valid reasons to interfere.
If in fact they did.
I wonder if she had to halt the interview to do an emergency change of said depends. 8>)
What am I saying, she probably had to halt it several times for that very reason. 8>)
I'm not sure what you're trying to say with that crack, but I'll have you know that Leslie Stahl is only 77 years young.
Bill Clinton gets paid a half million dollars to give a speech in Russia and all of a sudden Russia has a stake in American uranium. But that didn’t raise an eyebrow?
In a world where no one just tells the facts anymore, and the narrative and the agenda is the primary in the story,
In a world where no one just tells the facts anymore, and the narrative and the agenda is the primary in the story,
There was an article the other day that certain words/phrase should be banned in 2018. One of them?
Nothing burger.
This article, like a thousand others come from the militant arm of the DNC.
Abccbsnbccnnnytlat...
Nothing burger.
5.56mm
Also at the RT table with Putin and Flynn was John Kerry’s pal Ray McGovern and I think, the Green Party’s Jill the communist presidential candidate.
I expect no one will question John Kerry
bkmk
RT was mostly positive about Trump before the election. Once he was elected they flipped 180 degrees and now the coverage is overwhelmingly negative. Their real agenda is to divide Americans and make us look bad, whoever is in charge.
That said, they do have some very interesting coverage of international stories you don’t see on American networks. You just have to take their agenda into account. American networks no longer bother with having reporters outside of the USA. The American networks’ “world news” is a joke.
How does no one else ever bring this up?
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