{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.portman.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=A2857449-2865-41EF-801D-BAA4F0F9A90A", "On MSNBC, Portman Backs Ukraine & Discusses His Foreign Counter-Propaganda Bill", "2016-12-09", "2016", "2016-12", "Republican", "House", "OH", "Rob Portman", "P000449", "www.portman.senate.gov", null, null, "legacy", "During an interview on MSNBC\u2019s Morning Joe this morning, Senator Portman discussed his efforts to support Ukraine in the face of continued Russian aggression.\u00a0 He noted the letter he spearheaded yesterday with a bipartisan group of 27 senators calling on President-elect Trump to back Ukraine\u00a0and increase political, economic, and military support for the country.\u00a0 And he discussed his counter-propaganda bill \u2013 which was included the FY 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) conference report that passed the Senate yesterday \u2013 that is designed to help American allies counter foreign government propaganda from Russia, China, and other nations.\r\nTranscript of the interview can be found below and you can watch the interview\u00a0here.\r\nAnchor: OK go ahead.\r\nPortman: Well, it\u2019s interesting.\u00a0Yesterday, it was reported that a\u00a0bunch of us sent a letter to the\u00a0new administration regarding\u00a0Ukraine and regarding Russia\u2019s\u00a0activity on the eastern border\u00a0of Ukraine and Crimea.\u00a0This is another example where America, I think, has not played\u00a0the leadership role that we have\u00a0traditionally played, and the\u00a0consequences have been terrible.\u00a0Not just for Ukraine, but for\u00a0other countries watching,\u00a0particularly in eastern Europe,\u00a0and wondering, where is NATO?\u00a0Where is America?\u00a0I think we need to stand up and\u00a0be counted.\u00a0\r\n\u2026\r\nReporter: I wanted to ask you, Senator,\u00a0if you believed the\u00a0President-elect shared your\u00a0views and compassion on this\u00a0issue and the plight of people\u00a0in Syria and in Ukraine?\u00a0\r\n\u00a0\r\nPortman: I hope so.\u00a0I know he met or spoke with\u00a0President Poroshenko and agreed to\u00a0visit with President Poroshenko,\u00a0the president of Ukraine. He\u2019s learning more about some\u00a0parts of the world like that,\u00a0where the Obama administration\u2019s\u00a0philosophy, which as you recall,\u00a0famously, early on, was leading from behind has not\u00a0made the world safer but more\u00a0dangerous and volatile.\u00a0\r\nReporter: I wanted to ask you about\u00a0Russia because there\u2019s a number\u00a0of your colleagues on the hill,\u00a0senators saying they\u2019re going to\u00a0look into the role that Russia\u00a0may have played in meddling in\u00a0our election, perhaps the\u00a0hacking of the DNC, other rumors\u00a0about hacking of our election\u00a0system.\u00a0Are you supportive of that effort?\u00a0What do you hope is uncovered by\u00a0that?\u00a0How would you see it playing\u00a0out?\u00a0\r\nPortman:\u00a0Well, sure\u00a0I\u2019m supportive of looking into it.\u00a0 You may know that in the defense\u00a0bill that was just passed\u00a0yesterday in the Senate, has\u00a0already passed the House, now\u00a0going to the president, there\u2019s\u00a0language regarding disinformation campaigns and\u00a0specifically reorganizing the\u00a0U.S. government so we can better\u00a0respond to that.\u00a0Right now, other than radio free\u00a0Europe, we really don\u2019t have\u00a0much of an effort to try to counteract what\u2019s going on\u00a0around the world.\u00a0Some of it is Russia, some of it\u00a0is China, some of it is other\u00a0countries, but if you go to\u00a0eastern Europe, as an example,\u00a0much of what they\u2019re concerned\u00a0about is the disinformation and\u00a0the propaganda.\u00a0I do think we need to be much more responsive to that as a\u00a0government, and particularly\u00a0online, where we\u2019re not\u00a0sophisticated, and other\u00a0countries are.\u00a0I think there\u2019s a number of\u00a0things we could do, certainly\u00a0investigating any foreign\u00a0countries interference in our\u00a0election system is important,\u00a0but also having the U.S. itself\u00a0be able to push back against\u00a0disinformation and get the truth\u00a0out there to people over the\u00a0world.\u00a0\r\n\u00a0\r\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.portman.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=A2857449-2865-41EF-801D-BAA4F0F9A90A"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.4106601011008024, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}