The Russian propaganda machine that tried to influence the 2016 U.S. election is now promoting the presidential aspirations of a controversial Hawaii Democrat who earlier this month declared her intention to run for president in 2020.

An NBC News analysis of the main English-language news sites employed by Russia in its 2016 election meddling shows Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, who is set to make her formal announcement Saturday, has become a favorite of the sites Moscow used when it interfered in 2016.

Several experts who track websites and social media linked to the Kremlin have also seen what they believe may be the first stirrings of an upcoming Russian campaign of support for Gabbard.

Since Gabbard announced her intention to run on Jan. 11, there have been at least 20 Gabbard stories on three major Moscow-based English-language websites affiliated with or supportive of the Russian government: RT, the Russian-owned TV outlet; Sputnik News, a radio outlet; and Russia Insider, a blog that experts say closely follows the Kremlin line. The CIA has called RT and Sputnik part of "Russia's state-run propaganda machine."

Trump also reportedly spends time on these “impromptu” tours talking about the length of the bed in the Lincoln Bedroom. (“I don’t know how he slept there. He was a really tall guy!” the president reportedly said on one tour).

He also makes sure to insult former president Barack Obama during these tours — complaining, for instance, that there was once a hole in the wall of a dining room where he says Obama would watch basketball “all day.” (A former Obama White House official said there was no hole in the wall and that Obama did not watch basketball there.)

The FAA cited staff shortages for the extraordinary move

The Federal Aviation Administration has stopped flights into LaGuardia Airport in New York City due to major staff shortages amid the partial government shutdown.

The startling announcement came after unions representing aviation workers released a statement on Wednesday warning that the shutdown could pose serious safety risks for its members and travelers. “In our risk-averse industry, we cannot even calculate the level of risk currently at play, nor predict the point at which the entire system will break,” the statement read.

“On topics relating to the candidates’ fitness for office, Clinton and Trump’s coverage was virtually identical in terms of its negative tone,” Patterson wrote.

Regarding their fitness for office, they were treated identically? In retrospect, that’s madness. It should have been in real time, too.

The political world is still shaking over the New York Times‘ bombshell report that the FBI opened a counterintelligence investigation into whether Donald Trump was acting as a Russian agent following the firing of FBI Director James Comey, but Meet the Press host Chuck Todd wonders if the bureau was overreacting by probing Trump’s behavior.

Kaine cited some of the many reasons that the FBI had to suspect Trump, including Trump’s actions during the 2016 campaign, as well as “nearly 100 documented instances of ties between the Trump campaign, transition and administration with Russia, bizarre failure to be honest about meetings, and now this indication that President Trump has gone to unusual lengths to hide the content of discussions with Vladimir Putin.”

“Are you at all concerned though, that the FBI look like it overreacted in trying to investigate a sitting president this way?” Todd asked. “I mean, this is a pretty alarming investigation, that the sitting president was acting against the interests of the United States of America.”

“Well, I flip the question around, Chuck,” Kaine replied. “I think it’s less, ‘Did the FBI overreact?’, I think the question is this. They had to have a very deep level of concern about this president to take this step.”

Tonight, Donald Trump plans to give a live address from the Oval Office -- using the full force of the presidential bully pulpit -- to try and sell his border wall by lying to the American people that there's a crisis at our southern border. Lying and subverting is not a new tactic, but this is a new low for this administration.

The only border crisis we’re really facing is the inhumane detention of kids that has already lead to the deaths of two children: Jakelin Caal Maquin and Felipe Gómez Alonzo, who were just seven and eight years old.

Right now, do something to fight back against the administration’s hateful rhetoric and harmful policies -- donate directly to the organizations helping to reunite and provide support to families seeking asylum at the border:



Any contribution you make today will be split equally between Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project, Families Belong Together, Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project, Human Rights First, Kids in Need of Defense (KIND), La Union del Pueblo Entero (LUPE), Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES), Texas Civil Rights Project, United We Dream Action, and Women's Refugee Commission.

Thank you,
Hillary