How Media and Dems Risk Abetting Trump’s Degradation of Fact

Recently, while moderating a panel at the Russian Energy Week event in Moscow, Keir Simmons of NBC news asked Russian President Vladimir Putin if he intended to meddle in the U.S.’s 2020 presidential election.

Rebecca Morin, reporting for USA Today, narrates Putin’s response as follows:

“I’ll tell you a secret: Yes, we’ll definitely do it,” Putin cheekily replied while cupping the microphone, according to a translation from CNN.

“Just don’t tell anyone,” he added.

Simmons’ demeanor had the dead seriousness of a journalist engaged in some intense investigative work. Putin, of course, mocked him.

The question might well have deserved that mockery. What did Simmons expect to accomplish? What did he hope or think we’d learn from this hard-boiled questioning? Was the point of the question just to see Putin’s response?

Is his response, whatever it was, news in itself?

Apparently so, since I saw Simmons share his experience on MSNBC and, clearly, USA Today, reported the interview.

But what does this news coverage accomplish, really? Last June, Trump and Putin performed a comedy duet at the G20 Summit in Japan, as they both joked about the meddling, with Trump engaging in a mock-scolding of Putin, wagging his finger at him.

Of course, in January 2018, at a joint press conference in Helsinki featuring Trump and…