“Fox News’s Chris Wallace gives Putin the grilling Trump won’t,” by Aaron Blake: “The host on Trump’s favorite cable channel jousted ably with the Russian president — despite the use of interpreters — in an interview airing Monday night. He pressed Putin on the questions Trump has played off, including during Monday’s news conference with Putin in Helsinki. The interview turned heated at points, with Wallace clearly frustrated by Putin’s trademark filibustering and Putin clearly frustrated by a journalist actually challenging him.
“Perhaps the most notable exchange came toward the end, when Wallace probed Putin on why many of his critics wind up dead or near death. Putin, rather remarkably, compared these alleged assassinations to the assassinations of Americans such as President John F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1960s. He blamed ‘side effects’ of his country’s ‘maturing’ process. He even defended himself by saying his foes do ‘not always’ end up as casualties.
“At another tense point early in the interview, Wallace produced a copy of [the] indictments of 12 Russian military intelligence officers … detailed it briefly, and Putin began smirking — which Wallace noted. Then Wallace offered it to Putin, and Putin froze for a moment. Rather than accept the documents, he told Wallace to set them on the small table between them.
“Wallace tried to keep Putin on topic, and Putin kept suggesting he wasn’t being heard. A sampling of Putin’s responses: “I will get to it. Just have a little bit of patience. Then you will get a full answer to your question. … This is utterly ridiculous. … If you will have some patience, you will hear the entire response. … If you don’t like my answer, you can give it to me straightway, and I’ll just keep silent. And if you want Americans to listen to my opinion, could you please wait for a little bit? … Well, let me finish. Just let me finish. Well, you’re trying to drive, but I will finish.”
-- “Responding to a question … about interference in the 2016 election, [Putin] distilled his worldview: ‘You can’t believe anyone.’ For once, Putin had a Western leader standing next to him who rejects his critics in the same way,” Anton Troianovski reports: “[B]eyond Putin’s tactical gains, the Helsinki meeting highlighted the global ascendance of Putin’s ruthless approach to politics and to facts — the posture that any truth can be an illusion, that any journalist or public servant is likely pursuing an ulterior motive. That worldview, driven for years by state-controlled television in Russia and by Russian officials led by Putin himself, has long helped the former KGB agent consolidate power at home and buck Western criticism of his regime. It has driven Russia’s international influence efforts, such as on the airwaves of pro-Kremlin television network RT.
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