Should the United States topple democratically elected leaders of foreign government whenever it feels like the U.S. government is smarter than the citizens that elected those leaders?  The answer is yes, according to U.S. Senator Chris Murphy. In this video, Glenn Greenwald discusses a 2014 C-SPAN interview with Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, highlighting the U.S. government's role in Ukraine's political upheaval. Murphy admitted that Yanukovych, the democratically elected Ukrainian leader, lost legitimacy due to his use of force against protesters, justifying U.S. involvement. Greenwald criticizes the U.S. media for ignoring critical questions about U.S. interference in Ukraine and compares it to the U.S. government's reaction to foreign interference in its own elections. He argues that Murphy's stance exemplifies the arrogant mentality of the U.S. ruling class, which dictates when other countries' leaders have lost legitimacy. I created a transcript of this important discussion:

Glenn Greenwald Here is a video from a Democratic senator, Chris Murphy in 2014 on C span. Remember the US government, if you were to go to the State Department briefing or the White House briefing, as a real journalist, not someone who worked for corporate media, and say, how can the US claim Ukraine as democracy when the United States played a vital role in the removal of that country's democratically elected leader in 2014 or how can you object to Russian interference in our democracy? When we interfered in Ukraine democracy, they will laugh at your face and get the media to laugh with them and tell you that you have no idea what you're talking about, and then none of that happened, just like they denied the existence of that memo that the intercept today published describing their role in removing the Pakistani Prime Minister. And yet, I know this has been forgotten in 2014 Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, who was somewhat new to the the the role at the time, and didn't know how to lie and hide as well as he does now, was extremely open and candid, probably to the point that he infuriated everybody. He had visited Kyiv with John McCain and pledged us support for the anti government protesters, and then went on CNN and spoke very openly, pridefully, in fact, about the vital world the US played in removing the Ukrainian leader. Let's listen to what he said. Buddy is from McLean, Virginia, independent line for Senator Chris Murphy. Unknown Caller Hi, I just have a few points, and thank you for allowing me to call C span, by the way. I'll just have three quick points, and then I'll take the answers off the air. The first one is, isn't it sure that you know, that Yanukovych was elected for the first time in 2010 for one five-year term, that elections were scheduled for 2015? The second point is, why is it okay for foreign ministers from other countries to show up during protest movements, let's say in Ukraine, like the foreign ministers of Poland and in Germany, and support the protesters against the current government there? Wouldn't it be something similar to the foreign ministers of let's say Mexico and Canada showing up during the Occupy Wall Street movement and saying, yes, we agree that your government is corrupt? And the third point is, why isn't the West and America talking about the fact that a large or significant portion of the Ukrainian opposition right now is made up of far right politicians, including from the parties Svoboda, which openly is fascist and xenophobic? And they said that they don't want to join the EU because they consider the EU to be a bunch of gays and Jews. Just as well as they say that they don't want to join the imperialist Moscow regime. Glenn Greenwald First of all, isn't it amazing to listen to a question like that and then realize that it is extremely rare for any question like that to be posed to leaders of the Democratic Party or members of the bipartisan war party in Washington? Every one of those three questions was extremely well reasoned and based in known facts. They're all difficult to answer. They all point to the obvious flaws and lies embedded in the US narrative about Ukraine. And I can't think of one time when I heard somebody on CNN or the Washington Post or the New York Times or NBC News pose those questions to one of the members of the Washington ruling class. This is a random member of the public calling the C span? I really do believe that if you just pick someone randomly off the street who was reasonably attentive to American politics, he'd be far more likely to become informed by listening to what they have to say than by turning on corporate news and hearing employees of media corporations talk about those same issues. They would aggressively misinform you and mislead you. That's the kind of question that every journalist should be asking. Let's listen to what Senator Murphy said in response. Chris Murphy Let me take take all those very quickly, one at a time. You're right. Yanukovych was elected, and I mentioned this before. I understand the difficult position here, which is that Yanukovych was elected and we are not in the business of encouraging rebellions and revolutions on the streets against elected leaders, because we ultimately think that elections, as you mentioned, are the place in which you should settle your differences. The issue here is that Yanukovych lost his legitimacy to govern when he used force to try to break up these protests, and the United States didn't go on to that square in any meaningful way. Glenn Greenwald What do you think? The first of all, do you hear what he's saying? He's saying, yes, Yanukovich was elected democratically. His term under the Constitution. Tuition goes to 2015 but we decided--the United States did that--we wanted him removed because we declare he lost his legitimacy when using violence against protesters who were causing all kinds of instability in Kyiv, funded by the United States. What do you think the United States government would do if it had anywhere near that kind of a protest movement sweeping the United States, demanding the removal of the American president before his term was up, financed and funded by American adversaries, with leaders and officials of those adversary countries coming to Washington and telling the crowd, "We stand with you and we will finance you and support you"? Obviously, not only would the US government use violence in that case to break up those protesters, but most Americans don't think they should. And yet, Chris Murphy says, Yes, he was elected, but we decided he lost his legitimacy, and therefore it was time for him to go. These are the same people who, two years later, were going on television and looking in the camera and saying, We are enraged that Russia interfered in our democracy, because that is not what responsible, ethical countries do. Listen to the rest of his answer. Chris Murphy I understand the difficult position here, which is that Yanukovych was elected, and we are not in the business of encouraging rebellions and revolutions on the streets against elected leaders, because we ultimately think that elections, as you mentioned, are the place in which you should settle your differences. The issue here is that Yanukovych lost his legitimacy to govern when he used force to try to break up these protests. And the United States didn't go on to that square in any meaningful way until the President tried to break up the peaceful protests. That's why Senator McCain and I went, and we certainly got a lot of grief from people asking why two US senators are going to the square to support a protest movement against an elected government. [More . . . ]