Ralph Peters also said he is convinced that Putin has a grip on Trump in addition to calling Fox News a “propaganda machine.”
Retired United States Army lieutenant colonel, author, and former Fox News commentator Ralph Peters stirred up controversy regarding the network’s fierce loyalty to Trump back in March of this year when he refused to renew his contract with Fox News, effectively retiring, calling the network a “propaganda machine” for the Trump administration and accusing the network of “wittingly harming our system of government for profit.”
He went on to slam the door off its hinges by sending a mass email to colleagues, blasting the network.
“Fox has degenerated from providing a legitimate and much-needed outlet for conservative voices to a mere propaganda machine for a destructive and ethically ruinous administration,” wrote Ralph Peters, adding that: “Over my decade with Fox, I long was proud of the association. Now I am ashamed.” [You can read his full email here, courtesy of BuzzFeed News.]
Not yet satisfied, he published a blistering op-ed article for The Washington Post over the Easter weekend.
This Wednesday, he returned to the airwaves for his first interview since leaving Fox, telling CNN host Anderson Cooper that Fox News hosts are “doing a great disservice to our country” and adding that he thinks that Trump is “frightened” of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“I am convinced that Vladimir Putin has a grip on President Trump,” he told Cooper, adding, “I hope I’m wrong.”
CNN reported that: “Peters, who was a US Army lieutenant colonel before becoming a Fox military analyst, based his assessment on what he called his understanding of how the Russian government operates.” He also defended the importance of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, telling Cooper: “Without exaggeration, the Mueller investigation is the most important of my lifetime, and I am 66 years old. I lived through Watergate.”
He went on to double-down on his March remarks about Fox News, telling Cooper:
“For years, I was glad to be associated with Fox. It was a legitimate conservative and libertarian outlet, and a necessary one But with the rise of Donald Trump, Fox did become a destructive propaganda machine, and I don’t do propaganda for anyone.”
Continuing, he stated that Fox hosts who attack Mueller are “doing it for ratings and profit” and “doing a great grave disservice to our country.”
Cooper followed up asking if those Fox hosts “believe the stuff they are saying” about the FBI and Justice Department?
“I suspect Sean Hannity really believes it,” Peters responded. “The others are smarter. They know what they’re doing. It’s bewildering to me. I mean, I wanted to just cry out and say, ‘How can you do this?’ How can you lie to our country? How can you knowingly attack our Constitution, the bedrock of our system of government, the bedrock of our country?”
You can watch the clip, below:
You must be logged in to post a comment Login