Fox News Was Just Tougher On Putin Than Donald Trump

It spoke volumes when Fox News’ Chris Wallace was more confrontational with Putin than Trump was during their summit.

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Transcript:

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Wallace: Mr. President, one of the issues that is standing in the way of more progress, as you know, are the allegations of Russian interference in the U.S. Election. If you have repeatedly said, and you said again today that this was not the action of the Russian state, that if it was anything, it was patriotic Russian individuals. I have here the indictment that was presented on Friday from the special counsel Robert Mueller that says that 12 members of Russian military intelligence, the GRU, and they talk specifically about units 26, 165 and 74-455. They say — you smile, let me finish. They say that these units were specifically involved in hacking into democratic party computers, stealing information, and spreading it to the world to try to disrupt the American election. May I give this to you to look at, sir? Here.

Putin: Let me start answering your question with something a little bit different. Let’s have a look at it this way. People are talking about interference of Russia with the election process in the United States. I have mentioned this in 2016 and I want to say it now again and I really wish for your American listeners to listen to what I say. First of all, Russia as a state has never interfered with the internal affairs of the United States, let alone its elections.

Wallace: But this is the indictment. I have 12 names here. It talks about specific units of the GRU, Russian military intelligence. Is the GRU not part of the Russian state?

Putin: I will get to it. Just have a little bit of patience you will get a full answer to your question. Interference with domestic affairs of the United States, do you really believe that someone acting from the Russian territory could have influenced the United States and influenced the choice of millions of

Wallace: I’m not asking if they influenced, I’m asking whether they tried.

Putin: I’m about to answer. This was the first point I was trying to make. If you have some patience, you will hear the entire response. I said this in 2016 and I say it now, the idea was about hacking an email account of a democratic candidate. Was it rigging of facts? Was it forgery of facts? That the important thing, the point that I’m trying to make. Was there any false information planted? No, it wasn’t. These hackers — I will get back to it, just bear with me for a moment. They hacked a certain email account and there was an information about manipulation conducted within the Democratic Party to incline the process in favor of one candidate and as far as I know the entire party leadership resigned. They admitted the fact of their manipulation, so that’s one thing. Manipulation of the public opinion should stop and an apology should be made to the public at large instead of looking for those responsible or the party at fault. And now to the mentioned things. As I said in the press conference —

Wallace: President, may I just say, you are indicating that they stole real money, not counterfeit money. Are you saying it’s okay because of the fact that they took from the DNC, from John Podesta, it was their real emails, so it’s okay to hack and spread this information out and interfere with the election?

Wallace: Listen to me, please. The information that I am aware of, the democratic leadership admitted it. Not a second point, if you don’t like my answer, you can give it to me straight away, and if you want Americans to listen to my opinions, could you just wait for a little bit?

As you can see in the video above, Putin doesn’t like, nor is he used to be challenged by the press. Chris Wallace of Fox News was more interested and more prepared to challenged Putin than Trump ever was.

It speaks volumes about Trump’s capitulation to Putin that the most ideological network on cable news would be tougher on an enemy of America than Donald Trump. Even Fox News care more about this country than Trump.

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Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association