Maddow Accused Of Fearmongering For Segment On Hypothetical Russian Attack On Power Grid
MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow is taking heat from both leftists and conservatives over a recent segment that featured her speculating about a potential foreign attack on America’s power grid as much of the nation is dealing with crippling cold weather due to the polar vortex.
Prior to interviewing Wall Street Journal’s Rebecca Smith about her recent piece on Russian hackers targeting the country’s electric grid and how vulnerable the system is to future attacks, Maddow discussed a hypothetical situation revolving around Russia flipping the power switch on regions currently battling the extreme cold.
“And it is like negative 50 degrees in the Dakotas right now. What would happen if Russia killed the power in Fargo today?” Maddow asked. “What would happen if all the natural gas lines that service Sioux Falls just poofed on the coldest day in recent memories, and it wasn’t in our power whether or not to turn them back on?”
She continued, “What would you do if you lost heat indefinitely as the act of a foreign power on the same day the temperature in your front yard matched the temperature in Antarctica? I mean, what would you and your family do?”
Turning to Smith, the MSNBC anchor noted that the recent warning from Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats was in line what Smith had been reporting on the vulnerabilities with America’s power grids and systems. Smith said one of the things she found interesting in the most recent intelligence assessment was that “no longer is the federal government describing these things as a hypothetical.”
“That’s really a dramatic turn-about,” she added. “And I think it shows that this is really a matter of utmost national security.”
Maddow’s alarmist tone and theorizing of nefarious Russian cyberattacks caused a number of journalists and reporters to take her to task for what they saw as conspiratorial fearmongering.
Podcaster Adam Johnson compared Maddow today to Glenn Beck ten years ago, calling it the “greatest crossover event in history.”
Glenn Beck 2009 + Maddow 2019 is the greatest crossover event in history pic.twitter.com/D1NElGBq3U
— Adam H. Johnson (@adamjohnsonNYC) January 31, 2019
He took exception to Maddow asking her audience what would they and their families do, likening it to “2002 George Bush fear-mongering.”
“What would you and your family do?”. This isn’t even 2009 Glenn Beck it’s circa 2002 George Bush fear-mongering. Utterly shameless, speculative panic stoking horseshit.
— Adam H. Johnson (@adamjohnsonNYC) January 31, 2019
I’m racking my brain but I’m honest to god having a hard time figuring out in what moral universe speculating about “a foreign power” turning off grandma’s boiler is good for any leftwing cause ever. This is so obviously toxic.
— Adam H. Johnson (@adamjohnsonNYC) January 31, 2019
The Nation’s Aaron Mate also took aim at the MSNBC star, stating this was “a good example of Russiagate peddlers like @Maddow not ignoring, but *using* serious issues like life-threatening cold weather for conspiracy and fear-mongering.”
I generally argue that Russiagate conspiracy & fear-mongering distracts us from serious issues. This is a good example of Russiagate peddlers like @Maddow not ignoring, but *using* serious issues like life-threatening cold weather for conspiracy and fear-mongering: https://t.co/chQNmkeFFX
— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) January 31, 2019
Other leftist Russiagate skeptics and Maddow critics also chimed in, including — you guessed it — Glenn Greenwald:
THE TERRORISTS – I mean: RUSSIA!!! – are coming to take away the heat from you and your American families during winter!!! What will you do?!?!?!? This is the brain poison liberals feed on every night: https://t.co/9XSIyVrlc0
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) January 31, 2019
She’s a few episodes away from warning of Russia’s global weather machine https://t.co/2BicIelNAF
— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) January 31, 2019
Sooo deranged. In this video first covered by @aaronjmate, conspiracist Rachel Maddow implies Russia will attack US energy grids so we die from the cold
This is blatant fearmongering using an imaginary nonexistent event to rationalize a US war with Russiapic.twitter.com/V18AxvcxWQ
— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) January 31, 2019
I'm not even joking. I have so much work to do and I can't stop watching this. MSNBC often removes its most embarrassing debacles from the internet. Someone please do that here so I can get to work pic.twitter.com/sdNn20XBv4
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) January 31, 2019
One of the scariest things about Rachel Maddow's "The Russians are coming and they're going to freeze you to death" schpiel is that this woman is a Rhodes Scholar. She's over-educated and she's very intelligent. But the incentives are strong https://t.co/wcSzSXP0pU
— Katie Halper (@kthalps) January 31, 2019
Proof that @maddow has no real friends or the would’ve stopped her before it got to this https://t.co/U4h80tb4jr
— Jimmy Dore (@jimmy_dore) January 31, 2019
Meanwhile, Russia propaganda news outlets RT and Sputnik published critical pieces on Maddow’s segment, as well as pro-Trump right-wing site Breitbart.
On Thursday afternoon, Maddow tweeted out an apparent response to the criticism, providing a link to the DNI’s threat assessment along with screenshots of sections on the electric grids and gas pipelines.
Here's the link to the new Worldwide Threat Assessment from the DNI:https://t.co/jcYVTwvvPf
Here are the Russia/China electricity grid and gas pipeline sections of that report, which we covered on last night's show: pic.twitter.com/Gfm36JEm71
— Rachel Maddow MSNBC (@maddow) January 31, 2019
Watch the clip above, via MSNBC.
