washington. our alex marquardt got a taste of its programming. reporter: driving around downtown washington, if you tune the radio to 105.5 f.m., you land on radio sputnik, a station funded by a russian state media agency, playing in the american capital on public airwaves. here in d.c., you can listen to sputnik on both f.m. and a.m. radio. their shows are hosted by americans and they continue to broadcast even when other russia-backed outlets have been taken off of platforms like youtube and facebook because of russia s war in ukraine. the hosts can often be heard parroting kremlin talking points on ukraine. i already knew that ukrainian nazis were real, and when putin started talking about it, i was like, well, it s about time you talk about it. host lee strana hshlgs an
contributor, who is a temporary fill-in host. we know that russian state media is putting out lies about this conflict. i say that as someone who is on the ground in yoix. so why should the united states tolerate having russian state media on its public airwaves? let the american people make that decision. trust the american people to hear what they re saying and make the decision for themselves whether or not they believe that that is the truth happening. reporter: after the 2016 presidential election, the u.s. intelligence community led by james clapper put out a report accusing sputnik of being part of russia s interference efforts. there s this gray area of first amendment protection rights versus an insidious presence in our country that is really there to weaken and destroy our system. that s really what this is about, and it s state-sponsored. reporter: sputnik programming is only broadcast in two u.s.