Russian TV Keeps Goading Donald Trump

A Kremlin television propagandist has made fun of Donald Trump only days after another presenter had poked fun at the president-elect’s wife, Melania.

In the lead-up to the U.S. presidential election, hosts and guests on Russian state television would refer to Trump as the Kremlin’s preferred candidate. This was partly due to the Republican’s disdain for continued U.S. aid to Ukraine, as well as Trump’s claims that he can quickly end the war started by Russian leader Vladimir Putin, though Kyiv fears this would mean pressure to relinquish captured territory.

However, Trump’s victory has only been greeted with cautious optimism from Russian officials, and this is the second state television host to have poked fun at the Republican in a few days. Newsweek has emailed the Trump team for comment.

NTV channel host Tigran Keosayan, said there was a lot of doubt around the “ginger” Trump’s “ability to stop war” as he referred to how he “almost started World War III” with his 2020 order to kill Iranian general Qasem Soleimani.

During the segment, Keosayan spoke to footage of Trump alongside his team and his family on election night as the narrator described how the American “has a long list” of those he wants to exact revenge upon when he enters the White House.

This included Vice President Kamala Harris, current President Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama.

Back in the studio, Keosayan, whose wife, Margarita Simonyan, is the head of the RT channel and herself a frequent guest on Russian news programs, referred to the president-elect in the diminutive form.

“Donya’s not a touch person, just a little vindictive,” Keosayan said. “Trump is yet to sit in the presidential chair, and there is already a whiff of political repression in the air.”

In posting the clip, Anton Gerashchenko, Ukrainian internal affairs adviser, wrote on X, formerly Twitter: “Russian propagandists are mocking not only Donald Trump’s wife, Melania but also the future U.S. president himself, calling him ‘ginger’ and ‘Donya.'”

“They will never realize how small and stupid they look while they do that,” Gerashchenko’s post added.

The adviser was referring to how the presenters of the program 60 Minutes marked Trump’s reelection by showing past photographs of Melania Trump, including nude images from a GQ magazine profile in 2000.

During the segment hosted by husband-and-wife presenters Yevgeny Popov and Olga Skabeyeva, they made fun of how “the future first lady lies on top of furs in a negligee” and mocked how in one image she “is wearing only her underwear, lying on a blue carpet with the U.S. seal.”