Democratic former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii has been pandering to MAGA Republicans a lot recently, speaking at the 2022 Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Florida and making frequent appearances on Fox News —where she hasn't been shy about defending Russian President Vladimir Putin. During a March 15 appearance on Fox News, Gabbard told far-right host Jesse Watters that freedom of the press in the United States is "not so different" from Russia. And PolitiFact's Bill McCarthy pushes back against that claim aggressively in an article published on March 18.
Gabbard told Watters, "This foundation of freedom of speech, freedom of expression is directly under threat and under attack.… What's happening here is not so different from what we're seeing happening in Russia, where you've got state TV and controlled messaging across the board. This is where we're at."
