Putin TV propagandists eat crow after debate flop by 'our Donald' but still denigrate Harris

In the run-up to Tuesday night’s presidential debate, Vladimir Putin’s top TV propagandists were echoing Fox News and other right-wing media outlets in mocking Vice President Kamala Harris, predicting that “our Donald” would humiliate his foolish opponent in their first face-to-face encounter. As it turned out, they were the ones who ended up looking like complete fools.

Julia Davis, who monitors Russian TV propaganda for the rest of us, wrote this on Thursday for the Daily Beast.

There is shock and dismay on Russian state television, since Moscow’s true preferred candidate Donald Trump was no match for Vice President Kamala Harris in Tuesday’s debate. Now, Putin’s top propagandists are eating crow, having walked into a trap of their own creation, after weeks of dismissing Harris as a weak, feeble-minded contender.

In the run-up to this presidential debate, Russian state TV propagandists constantly predicted that the “charismatic” Trump—previously described as “our Donald”—would resoundingly defeat his opponent. They’ve consistently described Harris as a stupid, inexperienced newcomer, who simply cannot function without a teleprompter,

The coverage of the U.S. presidential race on Russian state TV was jam packed with compilations of Harris laughing or select quotes they repeatedly claimed no one could understand. Many of their clips came straight from Fox News, in which various hosts roundly mocked Harris and praised Trump.

Just hours before the start of the debate, Russian state TV host Oleysa Loseva even showed a clip of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones ridiculously claiming that Harris has severe “performance anxiety”  and would show up for the debate on drugs that would leave her constantly laughing.

Loseva: “The first debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris will take place tonight. What’s interesting is that this event will be broadcast live in Ukraine. In the United States rumors are spreading about secret tricks by the presidential candidates. It truly feels that Kamala Harris is the one who is scared of the upcoming debate. 

“American TV host Alex Jones asserts that she will definitely use drugs before the debate. How else can you explain her controllable laughter? Apparently this is how she’s going to deal with nervousness.”

The show then cuts to a clip from Jones’ Infowars in which the notorious conspiracy theorist predicts that Harris “is going to fall flat on her face without a teleprompter.”

Jones added: “She’s got serious performance anxiety. She going to be on DRUGS! She might be on a hit of ecstasy.”

Loseva then predicted that the candidates would talk about “the conflict” in Ukraine and how Washington elites are unfairly accusing Russia of attempting to interfere in the U.S. election and creating “an image of despicable evil Russians.”

But after the debate, Putin’s TV propagandists had to concede that Harris was the clear winner, while Trump put in a dismal performance.

On the TV show “The Meeting Place,” Alexey Naumov, a panelist from the Russian International Affairs Council, said the champagne corks were popping at Harris’ campaign headquarters and not at Trump’s after the debate.

Naumov said:

“She managed to lure Trump into every trap that she set up for him. … I wish I hadn’t watched that. Your goal as a candidate is to attract undecided voters and to show your moderate side, and you say, `Illegals are devouring dogs. This sounds like a premise from hell, it attracted no one to his side…. He had to attract undecided voters, and he failed to do so That’s why Ms. Harris is the one drinking champagne today.”

Another panelist, political scientist Gevorg Mirzayan dismissed Harris’ performance, saying that all she did was “prove that she is not a complete fool, knows how to read and can form a sentence out of three words.”

But other panelists set him straight. And Kirill Strelnikov, a political observer for the official RIA Novosti news agency, said:

“She smashed Trump, she smashed him to pieces…. I think Kamala Harris is the next president of America. She doesn’t need any more debates. … She has nothing left to prove. … Everyone saw who is worthy of becoming the next president of the United States.”

That panel discussion actually wasn’t too bad by Russian standards.

But Davis pointed out that other Russian propagandists were soon resorting to claiming that the debate was “rigged” in Harris’ favor and Trump was somehow “sabotaged” or “disadvantaged.”  In that regard, they ended up sounding a lot like Fox News hosts.

Davis wrote:

Notorious state TV host Vladimir Solovyov was appalled that moderator David Muir fact-checked Trump’s harebrained attempt to promote an unfounded conspiracy theory that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio are capturing and eating their neighbors’ pet cats and dogs. Solovyov exclaimed that Muir’s intervention was inappropriate, angrily asking, “Why would he do that? I thought he was supposed to be unbiased!”

That’s rank hypocrisy considering how Solovyov has been pushing unfounded conspiracy theories targeting Ukraine and how biased he is in his support of  Putin.

Putin’s propagandists did see one bright spot in what was otherwise a disappointing night. That moment came when Trump was asked whether he wanted Ukraine to win the war against Russia. Solovyov’s guest was Dmitri Simes, a dual U.S.-Russian citizen, who advised Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign and was recently charged by the U.S. Department of Justice with violating U.S. sanctions and money laundering for his work as a contributor to Russia’s state-run TV.

Simes said Trump considered Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to be “an obnoxious lackey.”

Davis wrote:

Trump’s refusal to say that he wants Ukraine to win in its battle against Russia’s invasion seemed to make them feel warm and fuzzy. Solovyov asked (Dmitry) Simes to elaborate as to how Trump is planning to quickly end the war between Russia and Ukraine. Trump’s former adviser said that the ex-president would simply tell Ukraine to concede to Putin’s demands, and cut off all U.S. aid if the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy refuses to do so.

As for the Kremlin’s reaction to the debate, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov expressed hope that the two U.S. presidential contenders would refrain from mentioning Putin’s name as a political tool to score points with American voters, according to the official TASS news agency.

Peskov said: "Of course, we noticed that both [US presidential] hopefuls mentioned our president and our country …  Putin’s name is being used as an instrument in the internal political tug-of-war in the United States. We are not very happy with this and we do believe that they will stop mentioning our president’s name."

The United States remains "negative and unfriendly" toward Russia anyway, regardless of which of the two parties their presidential nominees represent, Peskov added. "That’s perhaps the concern of the US electorate, not ours, to give assessments of their candidates. We have our own concerns, and our own goals to focus on," he concluded.

But Putin’s TV propagandists leave no uncertainty that Trump is their preferred candidate. Still, Oleg Morozov,  had to admit that Tryno was he was off  make no secret of which candidate Russia desperately wants to win the election.

State duma deputy Oleg Morozov, a member of the Duma (parliament), had to admit that Trump did worse than what Russians expected in the debate.

“For the first time ever, I’ve seen Trump like this. He is a debater, he is a fighter. He even has facial expressions of a boxer. ... This time he looked like a doll that had a plug unscrewed from a certain spot. He got deflated and started to melt. He looked five years older. He already took Biden’s place in a gerontological competition, Something clearly happened. All of Trump’s advanrges suddenly disappeared.”

But then he quickly switched to disparaging Harris, drawing laughter from the host Olga Skabeyeva, one of Putin’s most prominent propagandists who is nicknamed the “Iron Doll of Putin TV.”

Morozov said:

“What happened with Kamala is as follows: She was a village idiot, everyone considered her one. She was a primitive broad, good for nothing. She never distinguished herself in any way. In time for this debate, she managed to learn 15 correct phrases. ... She said them with gusto on-air. She delivered the lines with an actor’s flair. As an expert, i was very surprised by this.” 

Morozov then offered this reassurance about the debate: “But this doesn’t mean anything in terms of the final outcome” of the election.

And just like that, Putin’s propagandists were back to calling the Democratic nominee “a fool” as if the debate never happened.

Skabeyeva got in the last word: “She (Harris) was a fool of a regional significance, now she is a fool on the federal level. Note that we are not resorting to name-calling.”

Oh really!

And just consider how Putin’s propagandists and Fox News and other right-wing U.S. media outlets seem to be echoing one another.