Former celebrity Larry King received $225,000 to conduct a softball interview with Ukraine’s controversial prime minister in 2011, according to the recently exposed “black cash ledgers” now riveting Ukraine.
These are the same off the books ledgers that also allegedly earmarked $12.7 million in cash for Paul Manafort, who resigned as Donald Trump’s campaign chairman after the revelations became public.
(Manafort has denied receiving secret cash payments from Ukraine.)
In November 2011 Larry King flew to Kiev to interview Mykol Azarov, the right-hand-man of pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych, who Ukrainian prosecutors now accuse of massive corruption. During the interview, which was broadcast on a pro-government national TV station, King lobbed softball questions at Azarov such as “What do you like most about your job?”, “Why are you interested in politics?” and “How’s your health?”
It was just weeks after President Yanukovych jailed his main political opponent Julia Tymoshenko.
After the 30-minute interview King lavishly praised the prime minister as a “straightforward and honest person with a deep knowledge of world affairs”. He went as far as to compare him to Jimmy Carter, said he was good looking, and suggested that Azarov would have been a successful politician in the U.S.
He wouldn’t. In 2015 after the Maidan Revolution, Azarov, along with Yanukovych, ended up on the EU black list and Interpol’s wanted list. They are now both in exile in Russia.
Larry King, now 82, was ousted from CNN in 2010 after many decades as “the King of talk”. He currently hosts “Larry King Now” and “Politicking with Larry King” which are broadcast on Hulu and on RT America, a Kremlin propaganda outlet.