White House correspondent Peter Baker indulged his paranoia in a story in Friday’s New York Times: “In Trump’s Washington, a Moscow-Like Chill Takes Hold -- A new administration’s efforts to pressure the news media, punish political opponents and tame the nation’s tycoons evoke the early days of President Vladimir V. Putin’s reign in Russia.”
The odious Russia comparison is not just a stray metaphor but the entire story, predicated on the idea that Trump’s America and Putin’s Russia are similar authoritarian entities run on political vengeance. (And this ran before Trump and Vance’s contentious Oval Office meeting with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.)
Baker reached back to his years covering Moscow to paint Trump as dangerous.
She asked too many questions that the president didn’t like. She reported too much about criticism of his administration. And so, before long, Yelena Tregubova was pushed out of the Kremlin press pool that covered President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.
In the scheme of things, it was a small moment, all but forgotten nearly 25 years later. But it was also a telling one. Mr. Putin did not care for challenges. The rest of the press pool got the message and eventually became what the Kremlin wanted it to be: a collection of compliant reporters who knew to toe the line or else they would pay a price.
Of course, during Democratic administrations in the United States – reporters voluntarily line up to praise Democratic presidents, no carrots or sticks needed.
But after the White House’s decision to bar the venerable Associated Press as punishment for its coverage, the message is clear: Any journalist can be expelled from the pool at any time for any reason. There are worse penalties, as Ms. Tregubova would later discover, but in Moscow, at least, her eviction was an early step down a very slippery slope.
The United States is not Russia by any means, and any comparisons risk going too far. Russia barely had any history with democracy then, while American institutions have endured for nearly 250 years. But for those of us who reported there a quarter century ago, Mr. Trump’s Washington is bringing back memories of Mr. Putin’s Moscow in the early days.
The news media is being pressured. Lawmakers have been tamed. Career officials deemed disloyal are being fired. Prosecutors named by a president who promised “retribution” are targeting perceived adversaries and dropping cases against allies or others who do his bidding....
Baker talked of the transformation in Russia under Vladimir Putin over the period he and his wife (journalist Susan Glasser) covered the region, and extended the paranoid comparisons.
By the time we left in late 2004, Moscow had been transformed. People who had happily talked with us at the start were now afraid to return our calls. “Now I have this fear all the time,” one told us at the time.
There is a similar chill now in Washington. Every day someone who used to feel free to speak publicly against Mr. Trump says they will no longer let journalists quote them by name for fear of repercussions, both Democrats and Republicans.
Except journalists aren't thrown in jail or assassinated in America -- but that's a minor detail.
They worry about an F.B.I. headed by an avowed partisan warrior who has already developed what seems to be an enemies list….
The chief federal prosecutor for Washington has sent letters to a couple of Democratic members of Congress questioning them about public comments that he considers incitement to violence….
Baker didn’t go into detail about the latter accusation, but you can be the judge.
The reporter sharpened his over-the-top attack in a Friday evening appearance on PBS’s Washington Week with The Atlantic.
Baker: ….You're seeing the chill, the takeover of the press, the intimidation of people, and the fear among people who don`t support the president.
