Donald Trump Scolded By Russian State TV: ‘Do What We Say’ Or Russia Will Stop Backing You In Elections
After the United States State Department announced a new round of sanctions against Russia earlier this week, a top Russian media expert speaking on that country’s state-run TV network issued a stern warning to Donald Trump — “Do what we say!”
The exchange, on the Russia 1 network program 60 Minutes, was spotted by investigative reporter and expert on Russian media Julia Davis, who frequently posts excerpts and translations of Russian state TV political discussions on her Russian Media Monitor site, as well as on her Twitter feed.
The Russia 1 network is owned by VGTRK, or the All-Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company. According to the book Who Owns the World’s Media?: Media Concentration and Ownership Around the World, the Russian government is the “sole owner” of VGTRK.
The August 9 edition of the show featured a discussion of how Russia should respond to the new sanctions, which were triggered by a 1991 law, the Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act, which makes the sanctions mandatory unless Russia can prove that it will no longer use chemical weapons, according to an ABC News report.
On March 4, former Russian intelligence agent Sergei Skirpal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned by a chemical agent near their home in England. As The Guardian reported, British authorities now say that the Russian government was behind the chemical attack. The Skirpals survived the attack, but in July, a British woman, Dawn Sturgess, died from the same Russian-made poison, CNN reports.
Russia has responded in anger to the new sanctions, calling them an act of “economic war” and threatening an unspecified response, according to a CNBC report. But on the Russian state TV broadcast Thursday, one expert had a clear idea of what that response should be.
“Let’s turn this into a headache for Trump,” said Vitaly Tretyakov, who is the dean of the Moscow State University School of Television, according to Davis’s report on Twitter. “If you want us to support you in the elections, do what we say.”
Watch video of the Russia 1 broadcast, below.
https://youtu.be/UvtK54lUQ70?t=53m47s
In a subsequent Twitter post, Davis offered what she said was a more “detailed” translation of Tretyakov’s warning: “Let’s turn this into a headache for Trump. If you want us to support you in the elections, which we’re ostensibly arranging, then do this or that.”
Trump, of course, is currently under investigation — as the Inquisitr has extensively covered — for conspiring with the Russian government to help him gain victory in the 2016 presidential election.
