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Peter Baker on Trump's America: 'Vladimir Putin Would Feel Very Comfortable'
New York Times chief White House correspondent Peter Baker joined Wednesday’s Chris Jansing Reports and unleashed, even by MSNBC’s standards, one of the most ridiculous reductio ad Putinum claims ever uttered on the network as he claimed the Russian dictator would “feel very comfortable” in Donald Trump’s America.
Jansing was specifically interested in the administration’s Smithsonian reforms and clearly had a preferred answer in mind when she asked, “Peter, the statement from the White House says, in part, that ‘the Smithsonian museums and exhibits should be accurate, patriotic, and enlightening, ensuring they remain places of learning, wonder, and national pride for generations to come.’ You've written about the president's war on facts. Is this another example? If what's accurate, patriotic, and enlightening is whatever the president says it is?”
Speaking of wars on facts, this is the same Peter Baker who tweeted on Monday that Trump was responding to a “nonexistent crime crisis” in federalizing Washington, D.C.’s law enforcement.
As it was, Baker dived in head first, “Yeah, it reminds me of when I was in Russia as a correspondent. There's a phrase there that they use in Russia. They say, ‘The future is certain. It's the past that's unpredictable.’ Because in fact, regimes in places like Russia rewrite history in order to suit their current political needs.”
In Russia, the 1939 invasion of Poland is portrayed as a good and necessary thing, monuments to Stalin are still being built, and, of course, Ukraine is portrayed as a fake country run by Nazis. It doesn’t matter how much the media tries to scare people into thinking otherwise; there is no equivalent agenda on slavery and racism in the administration’s effort.
Nevertheless, Baker rolled on, “Now, look, you know, there has been this cyclical fight in the United States about how to define American history. Certainly, there are people out, particularly people who support the president, who think that the revisions to American history to bring to light things that were less savory about our past, including the things that Gene is talking about, have gone so far that we've lost sight of the things that make America special. And there is this push and pull among scholars. Among people who are serious about this.”
Nobody really objects to bringing certain negative things “to light.” What they object to is framing those as defining the nation’s ideals and present reality.
Yet, despite admitting there are real concerns that the far-left’s interpretation has gone too far, Baker claimed, “But when it's a president of the United States dictating what the history should be, that, of course, brings to mind a different kind of history, a history of the kinds of countries where politicians are deciding what people should know, rather than, you know, historians and experts.”
What would Baker suggest be done when only one side’s experts get a seat at the table?
Baker, however, wrapped up by returning to the Russia comparison and roping in other news that allegedly fit the same theme:
And if you put this together with a president who's now planning to personally host the Kennedy Center Honors, who's determining what kind of culture himself personally, who's now sending American troops into the streets of Washington, all of these things together, you know, harken to a lot of people to the kind of countries that, you know, Vladimir Putin would feel very comfortable in. And that, I think, is what’s disturbing to many Americans, is it doesn’t feel like, you know, a president is following the traditions that his predecessors over these 250 years have followed.
Vladimir Putin rewrites history to justify his war crimes and dictatorial rule. Donald Trump is responding to a movement that falsely thinks the Founding Fathers fought the revolution in order to perpetuate slavery and smears the system they created and their descendants as racist. There is no comparison.
Here is a transcript for the August 13 show:
MSNBC Chris Jansing Reports
8/13/2025
12:18 PM ET
CHRIS JANSING: Peter, the statement from the White House says, in part, that “the Smithsonian museums and exhibits should be accurate, patriotic, and enlightening, ensuring they remain places of learning, wonder, and national pride for generations to come.” You've written about the president's war on facts. Is this another example? If what's accurate, patriotic, and enlightening is whatever the president says it is?
PETER BAKER: Yeah, it reminds me of when I was in Russia as a correspondent. There's a phrase there that they use in Russia. They say, “The future is certain. It's the past that's unpredictable.”
Because in fact, regimes in places like Russia rewrite history in order to suit their current political needs. Now, look, you know, there has been this cyclical fight in the United States about how to define American history. Certainly, there are people out, particularly people who support the president, who think that the revisions to American history to bring to light things that were less savory about our past, including the things that Gene is talking about, have gone so far that we've lost sight of the things that make America special. And there is this push and pull among scholars. Among people who are serious about this.
But when it's a president of the United States dictating what the history should be, that, of course, brings to mind a different kind of history, a history of the kinds of countries where politicians are deciding what people should know, rather than, you know, historians and experts. And if you put this together with a president who's now planning to personally host the Kennedy Center Honors, who's determining what kind of culture himself personally, who's now sending American troops into the streets of Washington, all of these things together, you know, harken to a lot of people to the kind of countries that, you know, Vladimir Putin would feel very comfortable in. And that, I think, is what’s disturbing to many Americans, is it doesn’t feel like, you know, a president is following the traditions that his predecessors over these 250 years have followed.
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