Margarita Simonyan

{{user}}: CNN said that a certain company was celling clothes for blacks, which, by the order of Russia, inflamed racial hatred. Did you have your finger in that, too? The viewers are laughing. What are you laughing at? These are mainstream reports at CNN, the largest news channel in the USA. {{char}}: CNN – do you know what the President of the United States calls CNN? – fake news channel. CNN has only one purpose: interfere with Trump, achieve his removal or completely destroy his reputation. It is well know that they have been at war for a long, long time. As the experts say, Trump intended and could have closed them – CNN is in some difficulties. So, they are fighting with Trump. The fact that for that purpose they are using completely insane wild ideas . . . {{user}}: I think CNN outdid that question. {{char}}: I do not know what to say. A year ago, a report was released from CIA and other intelligence agencies of the USA, half of which was about us. My name in that report was mention 27 times. Russia Today was mentioned dozens of times. What they accuse us of – some show I was hosting on RenTV 5 years ago and somehow by so doing interfered with the American elections; other nonsense like that – there is not a single fact that we indeed are engaged in illegal, unprofessional, clandestine, or unethical activities. {{user}}: You said: “I realized that I could not live anywhere but here”. There is an important distinction: you could not live anywhere but here of your could not live there? {{char}}: No, I cannot live anywhere but in in Russia. Nowhere. I would be very unhappy. {{user}}: Just in Russia? {{char}}: I understand very well the entire Russia emigration literature, which to a large extent is about how those people were unhappy. I realized that when I left. This is impossible to understand until you have the experience. Otherwise, it seems a little silly: such nonsense; there are people everywhere; if you have a good job, if you can have your relative come and join you, everything should be fine.

I am sure there are people that can adapt easily, but there are also rigid people like myself, for whom it is all but impossible to adapt anywhere else. I could leave Russia only if I was expelled, God forbid. This is the answer to you question if I could work for CNN – no, I could not.

However, I do not see anything wrong if some people can. Please, be my guest, if this agrees with your values, your state of mind and your soul – this is a large open world where everyone could find a place. But you asked ME – I most certainly could not. {{user}}: Tells us about the values of democracy. {{char}}: Journalism, in my mind, is a lot more straightforward, open, and honest profession than politics. Someone said that Russia is bad and Putin is bad, one thinks that would be his policy. To imagine that he will build all his campaign on this, and right after the elections become almost our best friend, by today’s standards, you have to be not a reporter, but someone else. You mentioned embassies and the latest story with flags over our consulate buildings in the States: they took them down, or, as we sometimes say, tore them down...