The footage obtained by HuffPost shows a nervous Kelly who failed to press Putin on obvious issues.
As Megyn Kelly and NBC News face a firestorm over her interview with InfoWars’ Alex Jones, unedited footage from her recent interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin shows a nervous Kelly who asked the authoritarian leader softball questions and failed to hold him accountable on key topics. Most troubling, Kelly devoted precious time in her short interview to a question that led one former CIA Russia analyst to say that it sounded as if Putin had written the question himself.
In the full, unedited discussion, obtained by HuffPost, Kelly repeatedly fails to interrupt the Russian president while he rambles in his responses. She also asks Putin questions he can easily dispute.
The last question Kelly asked Putin, which was not aired, was startling in its pandering. “We have been here in St. Petersburg for about a week now. And virtually every person we have met on the street says what they respect about you is they feel that you have returned dignity to Russia, that you’ve returned Russia to a place of respect. You’ve been in the leadership of this country for 17 years now. Has it taken any sort of personal toll on you?”
A former CIA Russia analyst who spoke to HuffPost was taken aback by the last question Kelly asked. “I can’t begin to tell you what this did for Putin’s ego, and I wouldn’t put it past the Kremlin to use it for propaganda purposes. Putin’s obsession is, by his definition, making Russia great again. He’s obsessed with the idea that he has returned the country to what he sees as the glory days of the USSR. He feels that since the breakup of the USSR, Russia has too often ceded ground where it shouldn’t have. And he’s obsessed with people seeing him as the one who brought dignity back to Russia.”
Kelly’s Putin interview and her upcoming Alex Jones interview have led many to wonder if NBC has gone over its skis by placing Kelly in a position to interview tough subjects. Jones has propagated conspiracy theories about both 9/11 and the Sandy Hook massacre, and has doubled down on those positions in previous interviews.
In Putin’s case, Kelly had just 20 minutes with the de-facto dictator. If a reporter interviews a subject for hours, he or she might ask more personal questions in order to get the subject to relax. But Kelly needed to hit key questions quickly.
She didn’t. At no point in the unedited footage did Kelly ask Putin about the imprisonment, torture and murder of gay men in the Chechen Republic. She didn’t ask him about his incursion into Ukraine. She didn’t pointedly ask him, using specific names, about journalists and critics who have been murdered or imprisoned. (She included human rights concerns in a long question, but Putin successfully pivoted in his response.)
Video & More: Unedited Putin Interview Reveals A Missed Opportunity For Megyn Kelly and America | HuffPost
Embarrassing. Very embarrassing. Megyn Kelly is clearly no Barbara Walters. Two very poor interviews: Alex Jones and Putin. Why did she ever interview a deranged parasite like Alex Jones - and why did she feed Putin's ego rather than ask him tougher and more relevant questions relating to tampering with foreign elections? Her days at NBC may be numbered.
As Megyn Kelly and NBC News face a firestorm over her interview with InfoWars’ Alex Jones, unedited footage from her recent interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin shows a nervous Kelly who asked the authoritarian leader softball questions and failed to hold him accountable on key topics. Most troubling, Kelly devoted precious time in her short interview to a question that led one former CIA Russia analyst to say that it sounded as if Putin had written the question himself.
In the full, unedited discussion, obtained by HuffPost, Kelly repeatedly fails to interrupt the Russian president while he rambles in his responses. She also asks Putin questions he can easily dispute.
The last question Kelly asked Putin, which was not aired, was startling in its pandering. “We have been here in St. Petersburg for about a week now. And virtually every person we have met on the street says what they respect about you is they feel that you have returned dignity to Russia, that you’ve returned Russia to a place of respect. You’ve been in the leadership of this country for 17 years now. Has it taken any sort of personal toll on you?”
A former CIA Russia analyst who spoke to HuffPost was taken aback by the last question Kelly asked. “I can’t begin to tell you what this did for Putin’s ego, and I wouldn’t put it past the Kremlin to use it for propaganda purposes. Putin’s obsession is, by his definition, making Russia great again. He’s obsessed with the idea that he has returned the country to what he sees as the glory days of the USSR. He feels that since the breakup of the USSR, Russia has too often ceded ground where it shouldn’t have. And he’s obsessed with people seeing him as the one who brought dignity back to Russia.”
Kelly’s Putin interview and her upcoming Alex Jones interview have led many to wonder if NBC has gone over its skis by placing Kelly in a position to interview tough subjects. Jones has propagated conspiracy theories about both 9/11 and the Sandy Hook massacre, and has doubled down on those positions in previous interviews.
In Putin’s case, Kelly had just 20 minutes with the de-facto dictator. If a reporter interviews a subject for hours, he or she might ask more personal questions in order to get the subject to relax. But Kelly needed to hit key questions quickly.
She didn’t. At no point in the unedited footage did Kelly ask Putin about the imprisonment, torture and murder of gay men in the Chechen Republic. She didn’t ask him about his incursion into Ukraine. She didn’t pointedly ask him, using specific names, about journalists and critics who have been murdered or imprisoned. (She included human rights concerns in a long question, but Putin successfully pivoted in his response.)
Video & More: Unedited Putin Interview Reveals A Missed Opportunity For Megyn Kelly and America | HuffPost
Embarrassing. Very embarrassing. Megyn Kelly is clearly no Barbara Walters. Two very poor interviews: Alex Jones and Putin. Why did she ever interview a deranged parasite like Alex Jones - and why did she feed Putin's ego rather than ask him tougher and more relevant questions relating to tampering with foreign elections? Her days at NBC may be numbered.
