A deputy national security adviser to former President George W. Bush slammed Larry King Wednesday for launching a TV show on the Russia propaganda network RT America.
“I don’t view state-controlled stations like al-Jazeera, Russia Today, or the Saudi and Chinese equivalents to be news networks (and for that reason I don’t appear on them),” Elliott Abrams, who is currently a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, told The Daily Caller in an email. (RELATED: Larry King to launch show on Russian propaganda network)
“What they do is not journalism, but promotion of the owner nation’s foreign policy. Getting King may be a coup for Russia Today, but I am dubious at this point in King’s career. In any event, it is a terrible decision on his part to associate with a station that is a mouthpiece for Vladimir Putin.”
RT announced Wednesday that starting in July, it would carry King’s online program, “Larry King Now,” as well as a new program, “Politics with Larry King.”
Stephen Yates, a former national security advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney, was also highly critical of King’s decision.
“King is handing his reputation and legacy over to the Kremlin,” Yates said in an email.
“It is one thing to go on foreign owned networks as a guest to engage debate,” he continued. “Quite another become an employee of such a network and agree to advance its strategic objectives. Both transactions open questions about foreign ownership, sponsorship, or control over news and commentary in America that have not been seriously revisited since the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) of 1938.”