The Kremlin had its pick of the press corps to conduct Russian President Vladimir Putin’s first one-on-one interview with a Western media figure since he ordered the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. But rather than have Putin sit down with The New York Times or NBC News, the BBC or Le Monde, it provided access to Tucker Carlson, who posts his videos to X and his self-named website.
That’s because the Russians aren’t seeking a credible interview for a mass audience. They want to target right-wing Americans with propaganda at a crucial moment when Republicans have put the prospect of future U.S. aid to Ukraine on the ropes, without needing to worry about the interviewer’s forcing Putin to answer difficult questions. Carlson fits the bill perfectly.
This pretense — that only Carlson was willing to break the media blockade — fits with his broader shtick.
Carlson framed the interview to his fans as an intrepid act of journalistic truth-telling. He tried to focus attention on “why I’m interviewing” Putin, posturing that “corrupt” Western reporters hadn’t “bothered” to speak with the Russian strongman since he ordered the illegal invasion of Ukraine in 2022. This pretense — that only Carlson was willing to break the media blockade — fits with his broader shtick, which relies on presenting himself as the source for secret knowledge that mainstream journalists refuse to reveal.
But Carlson was lying. Reporters for outlets like CNN and the BBC pointed out that they had repeatedly sought their own interviews with Putin, only for their entreaties to be rejected (others noted the audacity of making such a claim when American journalists Evan Gershkovich and Alsu Kurmasheva are languishing in Russian jails for reporting from that country).
Indeed, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov subsequently acknowledged: “Mr. Carlson is not correct. In fact, there’s no way he could know this. We receive numerous requests for interviews with the…
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