Oliver Stone says Megyn Kelly 'didn't know her stuff' when she interviewed Vladimir Putin

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Oliver Stone says Megyn Kelly 'didn't know her stuff' when she interviewed Vladimir Putin and says he did better with the Russian president in soon-to-air Showtime series

Film director Oliver Stone, whose series of conversations with Vladimir Putin air next week on Showtime, said he watched Megyn Kelly interview the Russian president on NBC and concluded that 'he knew his stuff and she didn't.' Kelly's interview, which aired on the debut of her newsmagazine, Sunday Night with Megan Kelly, on Sunday, 'became machine-gun like,' Stone said, and was an example of how American journalism frequently leaves little room for nuance. 'I think she was attractive and she asked hardball questions, but she wasn't in position to debate or counter him, because she didn't know a lot of things,' he said. NBC News President Noah Oppenheim shot back that 'no one here is interested in Oliver Stone's unsolicited thoughts on Megyn Kelly's appearance or his ill-informed opinion of her journalism.

 

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[h=1]Oliver Stone says Megyn Kelly 'didn't know her stuff' when she interviewed Vladimir Putin and says he did better with the Russian president in soon-to-air Showtime series[/h]

• Film director Oliver Stone took aim at Kelly's debut interview for NBC
• His series of interviews with the Russian President will air on Showtime next week
• Stone said Kelly was 'attractive' but was not informed enough to 'debate' Putin
• NBC News president Noah Oppenheim shot back saying Stone hasn't made a 'decent movie since the early 90s'

 

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Film director Oliver Stone has criticized Megyn Kelly's debut NBC interview with Vladimir Putin, claiming she was unprepared for it and that he did a better job in his own series of chats with the Russian president.
Stone, whose series The Putin Interviews will air on Showtime next week, was unreserved in his criticism of Kelly, saying that while 'he knew his stuff', Kelly 'didn't'.
Likening the former Fox host to a 'machine gun' for her quick-fire questions, he said: 'I think she was attractive and she asked hardball questions, but she wasn't in position to debate or counter him, because she didn't know a lot of things.'
NBC News President Noah Oppenheim shot back to defend the star.
'No one here is interested in Oliver Stone's unsolicited thoughts on Megyn Kelly's appearance or his ill-informed opinion of her journalism,' he said.

 

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Film director Oliver Stone took aim at Megyn Kelly and her debut interview on NBC in which she questioned Russian President Vladimir Putin

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Oliver Stone's series of interviews with the Russian president will air on Showtime next week

'But so long as we're offering each other professional feedback, please let him know I don't think he's made a decent movie since the early '90s,' Oppenheim added.
Kelly's interview with Putin drew 6.1 million viewers on Sunday. The journalist asked him mercilessly about interfering with the US election and if he'd ever had business dealings with Donald Trump.
Putin, digesting her questions via a translator, was frosty and mocking.
In previews for Stone's Showtime interviews, he appears more relaxed. Stone interviewed him a dozen times between 2015 and early this year.

 

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As an example of where he believed Kelly was mistaken, Stone said the claim that 17 U.S. intelligence agencies had concluded the Russians were behind election year hacking and used as a preface for a question had been 'walked back.' It was a reference to testimony from James Clapper, former director of national intelligence, about a hacking report by three specific agencies. The independent organization Politifact has produced a report that backs Kelly, however, because Clapper had earlier said that all 17 intelligence agencies he had supervised agreed about Russia's involvement.




Stone, a controversial figure who has interviewed Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez and produced a documentary backing Putin's version of events in the Ukraine, conducts a Putin interview far less confrontational than Kelly's, at least on the basis of two episodes provided for screening by Showtime. One critic, Marlow Stern in The Daily Beast, called in a 'wildly irresponsible love letter' to Putin.

 

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Stone (above with Putin and an interpreter in Moscow) said Kelly lacked the information to debate her interviewee

 

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Kelly's Sunday Night interview with Putin drew 6million viewers. It was her first appearance on the network since she left Fox earlier in the year



The filmmaker's style does include its share of ingratiating remarks. 'You have a lot of discipline, sir,' he says at one point. 'You are an excellent CEO. Russia is your company,' he says at another. Besides office sit-downs, Putin is interviewed driving a car, walking through horse stables at his home and after he played in a hockey game. When Putin makes a claim about a letter he received from the CIA and Stone asks him to produce it, the Russian president says, 'My words are enough.'

NBC News President Noah Oppenheim defended Kelly and said 'no one' is interested in Stone's remarks

Yet Stone also challenges Putin on his authoritarian style and questions his claims of democratic reform. The filmmaker said in an interview that there are more direct questions about relations with the United States in the unseen third and fourth episodes.
He asks Putin about assassination attempts and, while it was inadvertent in one case, captures a couple of eye-opening moments. Asked if he ever have bad days, Putin replies that 'I am not a woman so I don't have bad days,' adding a reference to 'natural cycles' affecting behavior.
During a discussion about gay rights, Putin said about a homosexual male: 'I prefer not to go in the shower with him. Why provoke him?'
Stone is aware that he'll receive criticism for not pushing Putin hard enough. 'I'm not a journalist,' he said. 'I'm a filmmaker and I was taking a different approach.'
The project's value comes in seeing Putin talking about his life and world view in an extended format, seeing the personal and political history that drives policy for the U.S.'s biggest adversary, and simply how his mind works. At one point Stone asks Putin about a 13 percent inflation rate, and is quickly corrected. 'Twelve point nine,' he said.

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Kelly spent several days with Putin and his aides in St. Petersburg last week

'It's crucial for the United States to understand another point of view,' Stone said. 'I'm interested in preventing a further deterioration in relations.'
The film also features Stone screening a copy of the Cold War-era satire 'Dr. Strangelove' for the stone-faced Russian leader.
'I pushed him where I felt he should be pushed,' Stone said. 'At a certain point, you know that that person is not going to change his approach. He's a leader. He thinks things through and he's made his point. I can't think of anything more that I could have said or done.'
After returning to the US, Kelly said Putin was a 'different men' on and off-camera.
'I experienced a different man off camera and on camera. It was like two different men. Off camera and privately towards me was warm, he was extremely polite, he enquired about my family, he revealed details about his own family and things that were off the record that were very personable and then on camera he was the Russian president that we've all come to know.
'He was combative, he was defiant, he was fiery, he was on offence on most of the issues. He was the Vladimir Putin that Russians love to see.
'He actually likes to be challenged and I did challenge him.'

 

[superbeets]

And he is right. Instead of asking questions and listening for the answers, she tried to make Putin to say what she wanted to hear and repeat the propaganda that is peddled in US MSM.

 

[REDEYE]

You end up looking like a fool asking those stupid questions to another foreign leader..

 

[Dave007inVegas]

I see Kelly thought it would be nice to show the boys a little.

 

[Willie99]

he's right, but he's not a go to credible source for me

Michael Moore light (no pun intended), butt his movies are 1000x better