Russian Reporter Interrupts Obama’s Last Presser: ‘A Question For Russia!’

President Barack Obama speaks during his final presidential news conference, Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2017, in the briefing room of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
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A Russian journalist repeatedly interrupted President Barack Obama’s final press briefing on Wednesday afternoon, according to reporters in the room.

Andrei Sitov, the Washington, D.C. bureau chief for TASS, a Russian state-run news agency, confirmed in an email to TPM that he had yelled questions to the President with little success.

“I think it would have been only fair given that President Obama and the White House in general have engaged in relentless Russia-bashing for weeks,” Sitov wrote.

“In Russia we have a saying – ‘swing your fists after the fight’. It describes a sore loser,” he continued. “I think this is what we are seeing now and that the aim is mostly to delegitimize President-Elect Trump. But it does hurt the US-Russian relations, unfortunately.”

The Huffington Post’s Jennifer Bendery wrote on Twitter from the briefing room that a Russian reporter in the room yelled “you attacked Russia” at the President:

Sonia Dridi, a foreign correspondent for various European publications, reported a similar interruption:

Versha Sharma of NowThis News appeared to write about the same reporter, identifying him as the Washington bureau chief for TASS.


The incident in some ways mirrored President-elect Donald Trump’s refusal to answer a question from CNN’s Jim Acosta, who repeatedly said “you’re attacking our news organization!” at a press conference last week but did not get a response from Trump. Reporters inside the White House press briefing room wrote that the Russian journalist yelled that Obama had “attacked” Russia, but unlike Trump, Obama did not appear to acknowledge the reporter at all.

Asked about the similarity, Sitov wrote TPM, “it’s up to you to decide.”

“But I think, given what President Obama had to say about the importance of the press with its hard questions, it would have served them well to recognize me,” he continued. “I did not notice any particularly hard questions in the news conference.”

This post has been updated.

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