‘Completely baseless’: Tulsi slams US media smears against her campaign

Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard took the media to task for what she called biased and misleading coverage of her campaign, arguing the facts no longer matter to some outlets.

Speaking at an event in New York recently, Tulsi said the press had given up on any semblance of balanced or accurate reporting, replacing news coverage with panels of jabbering pundits.

Instead of factual reporting, she said: “We see opinions, we see panels of people on all the news channels – I don’t care which one you watch – sharing their opinions.”

The 2020 hopeful also described what she said were intentional smear efforts against her campaign in the media.

“Me and my campaign have been on the receiving end of very intentional smear efforts trying to undermine our campaign coming through, you know, NBC News quoting articles that are completely baseless,” Gabbard said.

She referred to a recent interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, wherein the pundit echoed the suggestion that Gabbard’s campaign was boosted by “Putin apologists.”

“Well, you know, this article in the Daily Beast says Putin supports your campaign,” she said, imitating Stephanopolous’s question in the interview.

An article “based on what?” she asked the audience in New York rhetorically. “Nothing. Really, nothing.”

The story in question intimated that Gabbard’s presidential bid was backed by “Kremlin sympathizers,” such as the Nation magazine’s Stephen F. Cohen, an expert in international relations who argues for better ties between the US and Russia.

Gabbard has come under fire for her foreign policy positions, such as her call for detente between the US and other nuclear-armed states like Russia. Tulsi’s opposition to US regime change policies have also made her a target in some quarters. After refusing to endorse American efforts to topple the Syrian government, she was branded as an ‘apologist’ for Syria’s President Bashar Assad.

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