Donald Trump’s military parade on the Fourth of July is not exactly going over well with Russian state media.
As the president’s changes to the normally apolitical Fourth of July celebration in Washington, D.C., have come under fire from critics at home, the anchors from the state-run Russia-1 television station also seemed to revel in mocking Trump for the show of force.
Igor Korotchenko, the Russian Defense Ministry’s Public Council member, was particularly harsh in attacking Trump. As American journalist Julia Davis shared on Twitter , Korotchenko said in a segment on the Fourth of July that Trump “has an inferiority complex” and others noted that he appears to be trying to emulate other strong nations like Russia and China with the military parade.
The Russian state media continued to mock the coverage that Fox News was giving the parade.
Davis has frequently chronicled how Russian state media mocks Donald Trump, and especially his obsession with Russia and Vladimir Putin. In January 2018, the state-run news channel Russia 24 bragged after Trump said at a G-7 meeting that Ukraine’s Crimea region now belongs to Russia because the people there speak Russian.
As Newsweek noted, the hosts of the Russian news equivalent of 60 Minutes then bragged that, “Crimea is ours, Trump is ours.” The incident came after Russia had been expelled from the G-8, the leaders of the world’s eight most developed economies, after it annexed the disputed Crimea region from Ukraine. As further explained, the international community had been unified in its condemnation of what was considered an illegal annexation — until Trump’s statement appeared to condone it.
Trump later went on to blame Barack Obama for Russia’s actions.
“President Obama lost Crimea because President Putin didn’t respect President Obama, didn’t respect our country and didn’t respect Ukraine,” Trump said, via The Washington Post .
#Russia ‘s state TV panel laughs at the excitement of @FoxNews anchors gushing about Trump’s parade: “Two tanks is all they’ve got! Their paint is peeling, their uniforms are wrinkled! Trump should have asked our Defense Ministry to teach them how to organize military parades.” ©? pic.twitter.com/6Eaz3kKIfR
— Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) July 4, 2019
#Russia ‘s state TV: Igor Korotchenko, Russian Defense Ministry’s Public Council member, says “Trump has an inferiority complex” re: Russia, China—”Military parades are the face of the nation, so let them show their military might.”—”And we will laugh,” adds host Olga Skabeeva. ©? pic.twitter.com/VcIwzwnnKY
— Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) July 4, 2019
Donald Trump has taken plenty of criticism at home for the changes he made to the Fourth of July celebration in the nation’s capital. Critics said that the celebration has a long tradition of being free of politics, but they expressed worry that would be lost after Trump announced the changes to the event that included a military parade and a speech he plans to deliver. The White House said that the speech would not be political.
Critics said they event resembles a campaign event for Donald Trump, right down to the Republican National Committee being in charge of tickets for a VIP-only area.
