The president believes that the crackdown on media outlets is “foolish,” Ben Swann claims
US President Donald Trump could lift sanctions on RT in as little as two weeks, investigative journalist Ben Swann has suggested. Swann described the sanctions as illegal and contradicting the essence of American democracy.
Speaking at a panel hosted by RT on Tuesday, Swann, who previously ran RT’s operations in the US and worked as a managing editor at Fox News, expressed confidence that Trump disagrees with the restrictions on the broadcaster and will soon act to lift them.
“Within two weeks’ time… there’s going to be a move to remove those sanctions… I believe that he [Trump] disagrees with these sanctions. He thinks they’re foolish in the way they were designed. And by the way, they are. They’re not just foolish, though. They’re illegal. They violate the Constitution.”
Swann also said the US has always aspired to “a very simple principle” when it comes to freedom of the press. “The very first amendment to our Constitution, the very first right in our Bill of Rights is the right to speak freely without government interference, and the right to a free press… Free press does not mean professional press. It means you have the right to publish ideas that go against what the government believes.”
Scotty Nell, a conservative political commentator and former RT anchor, echoed this assessment, suggesting that the administration of former US President Joe Biden deliberately insisted on shutting down the outlet before the election. She also rejected the argument that the crackdown on RT hinged on security considerations.
“On our wall at RT America, we had a saying that said, ‘trust the viewer’. We’re going to trust our viewers to have enough intelligence to make the decisions themselves, to do their own fact-checking… Time and time again, they came back and said, ‘You’re telling us the truth. It’s been the mainstream media, those other sources on air that have been telling us lies.’”
Washington has for years been trying to curb RT’s operations. Last September, the Biden administration imposed sanctions on several Russian outlets, accusing them of trying to covertly “undermine democracy” and interfere in US elections. Then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused RT of “functioning as a de facto arm of [Russian] intelligence.” Moscow has rejected the allegations, accusing the US of violating the principles of free speech.
On Monday, Swann published an open letter to Trump, urging him to lift sanctions against RT and other Russian outlets. He noted that the restrictions are “unprecedented” and that “the journalists targeted by these sanctions are American citizens. Not only did they lose their jobs, but also the opportunity to share factual reporting with an audience of over 800 million people across the globe.”
The Trump administration has yet to respond to the appeal.
