General Discussion

babylonsister

(171,070 posts) Thu Aug 30, 2018, 07:29 AM Aug 2018

John McCain Sounds the Alarm on Trump and Russia in New Documentary 'Active Measures'

https://www.thedailybeast.com/john-mccain-sounds-the-alarm-on-trump-and-russia-in-new-documentary-active-measures?ref=home

John McCain Sounds the Alarm on Trump and Russia in New Documentary ‘Active Measures’
Watch an exclusive clip of the late Arizona senator from the new documentary ‘Active Measures,’ about Trump and Putin.
Matt Wilstein
08.30.18 4:42 AM ET

Active Measures, a new documentary from director Jack Bryan, would be timely even without the presence of John McCain. And yet the senator, who died of brain cancer less than a week before this film’s August 31st release, adds an additional dose of relevance and urgency to its central thesis: that President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin are far more intertwined than you know.

“The fact that there was an attack on the fundamental—the absolute fundamental—a free and fair election, should alarm all of us,” McCain says in the exclusive clip below. He’s referring to the reports from August of 2016 that Russian hackers were targeting voter registration databases in states like Arizona.

snip//

In contrast to Trump’s “sycophantic” commentary about Putin, McCain can be seen in the film decrying the Russian leader as “an individual who poses a threat to the world” and “has no moral standards that I’ve been able to detect.” His interview presumably came before Trump’s joint press conference with Putin in Helsinki, which McCain memorably described as “one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory.”

The film also implies that Trump’s most damning attack on McCain came right out of Putin’s mouth. Before Trump infamously declared, “I like people that weren’t captured,” Putin noted, “Mr. McCain was taken prisoner in Vietnam and was put not just in jail but in a pit. He sat there for several years. Anyone would go nuts after that.”

The fact that Trump “despised” McCain (and vice versa) has been well documented, but McCain’s role as enemy number one in the Russian propaganda machine became more widely apparent after his death.

As New York Times Moscow correspondent Andrew Higgins reported this week, Russian state television has referred to McCain as “the chief symbol of Russophobia” in its coverage of his passing. Higgins quoted the man behind the “Russians for Donald Trump” Facebook page, who lamented that other hawkish senators like Lindsey Graham won’t be able to fill McCain’s shoes. “None of them is as charismatic as John McCain,” Alexander Domrin said. “It will be hard to find somebody who can replace him as the main Russophobe.”

McCain seems particularly disturbed in the documentary by the Trump campaign’s successful effort to remove from the Republican Party platform a provision condemning Russia’s annexation of Ukraine.

“I think that’s part of this whole scandal that needs to be resolved,” McCain implores. “Why would the Republican Party remove a provision that would help people who have been invaded and slaughtered defend themselves?” He smiles slyly, gives a slight roll of his eyes and adds, “Interesting.”

The film ends with a stark warning from McCain, Clinton, and others about the near certainty that Russia will continue to interfere with American elections this year, in 2020 and beyond. Taking one last shot at Trump for failing to take his own “active measures” against Russia for attacking American democracy, McCain says, “As long as people can do things without penalty, they’re going to continue to do them.”