Report: Russian media, far and away, favors Tulsi Gabbard

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, running for the Democrat's nominee for President of the US, pooh-poohs accusations that she is a Russian asset, but there is no doubt that she is a favorite of Russian media.

According to a new report released last Nov. 12 by a research team at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, the Samoan American candidate is covered in a far more favorable light by Russian media than any other Democratic candidate.

The research team based their findings on an analysis of articles published in Russian Today and Sputnik News, funded by the Russian government and according to US intelligence sources played a role promoting Donald Trump in the 2016 election.

Gabbard's "anti-war stance as a military member and shaming of U.S. establishment leaders is a wonderful vehicle for the Kremlin to divide the political left and pit populists against the establishment," Clint Watts, a former FBI agent who led the research effort, told NBC News.

"RT and Sputnik content in total volume is exceptionally higher for Vice President Biden, more so than normal U.S. election coverage. … Russia often amplifies President Trump's disparagement of Biden, and this adds to the negative coverage overall," said Watts.

When Hillary Clinton was interviewed on Democratic strategist David Plouffe's podcast, she said that the Republicans were "grooming" a Democratic candidate to do a third-party run ala Julie Stein to take votes away from whoever the Democrats put up against Donald Trump.

Her remarks were initially taken out of context making it sound like the Russians were grooming a candidate and widely misquoted by Gabbard in her response. Gabbard strongly denounced Clinton's remarks implying that Hawaii's representative is a Russian asset

The graphic below pretty much sums up the FPRI report.