Oliver Stone, Bill Maher tangle on reliability of US intelligence on Russia: ‘You think they’re lying?’
Oliver Stone speaks at the ZFF Masters during the 15th Zurich Film Festival on October 05, 2019 in Zurich, Switzerland.
Oliver Stone tangled with HBO’s Bill Maher on Friday night over the reliability of U.S. intelligence as it pertains to Russian meddling in American presidential elections, with the “JFK” director arguing “we have to question everything that comes out of our intelligence agencies.”
Stone interviewed Russian President Vladimir Putin for the Showtime series “The Putin Interviews,” with Stone having repeatedly questioned intelligence agencies’ conclusions around Kremlin-led interference in the 2016 presidential election.
“You can’t really think that a Russian president should be able to rat-f— our elections like this, can you?” Maher asked Stone.
“Oh Bill, I’ve known you all too long and I think you’re sophisticated enough to know, we have to question everything that comes out of our intelligence agencies,” Stone replied. “If you haven’t learned that by now, you’ve got a long way to go still.”
“So they’re lying?” Maher asked.
“Intelligence agencies are not reliable. They’ve been screwing with America going back to the Vietnam War, going back to the Iraq Wars, the Afghanistani wars,” Stone retorted “It’s very hard to find out the truth from them. Everything they publish, the rumors, the anonymous sources, the think tanks, the anti-Russia…it all adds up into this ball of wax that becomes enormous. And then they have people like you, who are skeptical generally, believing it. I would really triple-check everything, every one of those sources.
“I’m not voting for Trump and he’s a sad figure,” Stone concluded “He was the wrong choice to be president. But to make our foreign policy dependent on attacking Trump, to get rid of Trump and creating a Cold War environment with China and with Russia and with other countries is crazy and this stigmatization is not a policy.”
Stone has won several Oscars during his career, including for “Platoon,” “Wall Street,” “Born on the Fourth of July,” and “JFK,” which alleges that Lee Harvey Oswald did not kill President John F. Kennedy in Nov. 1963, despite the conclusion of the Warren Commission.
“You had to have at least two shooters, and [Lee Harvey] Oswald was not one of them,” the 73-year-old told the Hollywood Reporter earlier this month.
Maher’s program has been broadcasting from his backyard since the coronavirus pandemic hit the U.S. earlier this year, but will return to its Los Angeles studio on Aug. 28.
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