Putin’s Republican cheerleaders

Ronald Reagan condemned Russian communism. Many Republican leaders now praise Putin. What gives?

Follow the money to see how Republican leaders became Putin cheerleaders.

• How Russia helped Trump get elected
• Trump withholding weapons from Ukraine unless they helped him get re-elected
• Tucker Carlson and FOX News cheering for Putin
• Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook long history of spreading Russian disinformation
• Trump praising Putin's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine
• Republicans push voter suppression bills while America is focussed on Ukraine

Trump praises Putin

As Russia prepared to strike Ukraine and the United States rushed to defend neighboring allies in Europe, former President Donald J. Trump had nothing but admiration for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. He is “pretty smart,” Mr. Trump said on Wednesday at a Florida fund-raiser, assessing the impending invasion like a real estate deal. “He’s taken over a country for $2 worth of sanctions,” he said, “taking over a country — really a vast, vast location, a great piece of land with a lot of people — and just walking right in.” - NY Times

Jan 6 insurrection Republicans for Putin

"... the same Republicans who have been most closely associated with Trump and the January 6 insurrection are trying to use Russia’s attack on Ukraine to undermine the president. Following the lead of former president Trump, who says that Putin invaded because Biden is weak, Representative Elise Stefanik (R-NY), the third most powerful House Republican, tweeted that “Joe Biden is unfit to serve as Commander-in-Chief. He has consistently given into [sic] Putin’s demands and shown nothing but weakness.” - Heather Cox Richardson

Paul Manafort

"Andriy Kluyev, is also allegedly a part of the Russian scheme to take control in Kyiv. A former secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, Kluyev has faced accusations of being involved in mass killings, according to Reuters. He was allegedly involved in the payments that were the focus of the federal trial of President Donald Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort. (Manafort was found guilty of bank fraud and filing false tax returns.)" - MSNBC

"Trump pardons Paul Manafort, Roger Stone and Charles Kushner. Mr Manafort was convicted in 2018 in an investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 US election." - BBC

Carlson, Ingraham and Murdoch for Putin

"On the eve of war, Tucker Carlson defended Putin. As Putin started a war, the conservative news outlet‘s top talent sympathized with the former KGB agent-turned-despot over the U.S. and its allies — a stunning move even for the network that provided a megaphone for Trump’s Big Lie about a “rigged” election... Carlson used Wednesday’s show to wave the flag not for the U.S. or its suffering ally Ukraine, but for Putin. Questioning why we should hate the autocratic and isolated Russian ruler, the “Tucker Carlson Tonight” host discounted Ukraine as “a pure client state of the United States State Department.” - LA Times

"As Russia began an invasion into Ukraine, the Fox News host Laura Ingraham on Wednesday night welcomed a call in to her show from former President Donald J. Trump, who blamed the “weakness and the incompetence” of the Biden administration for the military strike." - NY Times

"Malcolm Turnbull, Australia’s ex-prime minister accused Murdoch of doing more to divide America than Vladimir Putin, and blamed his media empire for causing the presidency of Donald Trump as well as the Capitol riot that marked the disgraceful climax of his time in power. “What does Vladimir Putin want to do with his operations in America? He wants to divide America and turn Americans against each other,” said the ex-prime minister, who first met Murdoch in 1974. “That is exactly what Murdoch has done: divided Americans against each other and so undermined their faith in political institutions that a mob of thousands of people, many of them armed, stormed the Capitol.” - MSNBC

Facebook spreads Russian disinfo

"Russia-backed media reports falsely claiming that the Ukrainian government is conducting genocide of civilians ran unchecked and unchallenged on Facebook. Videos from the Russian government — including speeches from Vladimir Putin — on YouTube received dollars from Western advertisers.

Russia’s top five international state-backed media outlets have used Facebook and Twitter to share debunked reports claiming that the Ukrainian military had committed unprovoked attacks on Russian-allied forces... Over the last seven days, these outlets garnered up 4 million engagements — likes, shares and comments — on their Facebook posts. During the same period, Fox News’ main Facebook page received 3.8 million engagements.

Lawmakers in the U.S. and Europe are paying attention, with new online content rules almost complete in Europe and American lawmakers increasingly questioning whether social media companies are doing enough to protect people online... Social media companies are already under pressure from politicians in both the U.S. and Europe who argue that falsehoods ranging from Covid treatments to voting fraud — and misinformation, more generally — provide justification to curtail the industry’s liability protections, break the large tech companies up or otherwise rein them in by demanding more transparency about their operations." - Politico

TakeAway: Follow the money to see how Republicans, FOX News and Facebook became Putin cheerleaders.

Deepak
DemLabs

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