Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson announced Tuesday that he is in Russia for the worst reason possible: he is going to interview Vladimir Putin.
Carlson has been in Moscow over the past few days, gleefully fueling speculation that he would interview the Russian president. Neither he nor the Kremlin would explicitly confirm or deny anything until Carlson posted a video on X (formerly Twitter).
Carlson said he was interviewing Putin so that Americans would finally know the truth about the war in Ukraine.
American “media outlets are corrupt,” he said in the video. “They lie to their readers and viewers, and they do that mostly by omission.”
He cited the multiple interviews Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has given to U.S. outlets. “The interviews he’s already done in the United States are not traditional interviews,” Carlson said. “They are fawning pep sessions specifically designed to amplify Zelenskiy’s demands.”
“That is not journalism. It is government propaganda.”
Carlson did not acknowledge the fact that he himself has held multiple “fawning pep sessions” for a politician. Both while he was at Fox News and after he was unceremoniously fired, Carlson has repeatedly parroted Donald Trump’s talking points and invited the former president on air to spew falsehoods unchecked.
Meanwhile, Carlson claimed, no Western outlets have interviewed Putin, meaning most Americans don’t know “why Putin invaded Ukraine, or what his goals are now.”
Putin has actually made it pretty clear why he invaded Ukraine: he wants to force the country to rejoin Russia, in an effort to reestablish the Soviet Union. But if there is a lack of coverage about the Russian side of the invasion, it’s because Putin has cracked down on journalism.
Since the war broke out, the Kremlin has rushed to silence reporting on the military conflict. Two American journalists, Evan Gershkovich and Alsu Kurmasheva, are currently imprisoned in Russia for covering the war.
It’s likely that Putin only accepted Carlson’s request for an interview because Carlson, while at Fox, repeatedly expressed support for Putin on air and echoed Kremlin talking points. He has vehemently opposed U.S. military aid for Ukraine and blamed Western nations for Russia’s invasion because they supported letting Ukraine join NATO.
Why I’m interviewing Vladimir Putin. pic.twitter.com/hqvXUZqvHX
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) February 6, 2024