The conservative US commentator has rejected accusations of “Russian collusion”
US conservative political commentator Candace Owens has brushed off criticism of her visit to Russia after posting photos from what she described as an “unbelievably beautiful” Moscow.
Owens described the trip to her 6 million YouTube subscribers as a “family vacation.” Some fellow commentators criticized the visit, with Daily Wire co-founder Ben Shapiro labeling it an act of “ideological subversion.”
“I’m starting to understand why the talking heads panic and shout and lie about ‘Russian collusion’ when they learn an American with a platform is traveling here,” Owens wrote on X on Sunday, sharing a photo of herself on Red Square.
“It is genuinely shocking how clean, beautiful and orderly this city is. It is so far removed from media depictions,” she added.
Owens also shared photos from a theater and a church.
“I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I wasn’t expecting this,” she wrote.
Republicans and Democrats alike, along with numerous media figures, similarly criticized journalist Tucker Carlson for traveling to Moscow twice in 2024 to record interviews with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
Carlson said he found Moscow to be “so much nicer” than cities in the United States and argued that American media coverage of Russia and the Ukraine conflict was heavily biased. He dismissed his critics as “professional liars.”
Owens initially rose to prominence in the late 2010s by using her platform to urge black voters to stop supporting the Democrats. She joined Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire in 2020, where her self-titled podcast reached millions of viewers. However, she was fired four years later following a public dispute with Shapiro over Israel’s war in Gaza.
Owens later broke with US President Donald Trump over his support for Israel. Following the launch of her own show on YouTube, the popular podcaster drew criticism for controversial statements, including suggestions that Israel could have been involved in the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Last year, French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte, filed a defamation lawsuit against Owens after she suggested that France’s first lady was born a man.
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