Tucker Carlson faces media fury over Putin interview

Tucker Carlson is interviewing Russian President Vladimir Putin. The reaction has been apoplectic.

Carlson, a conservative pundit and former Fox News anchor who has repeatedly questioned support for Ukraine’s war effort, announced Tuesday night his plans to sit down with the Russian president during his trip to Moscow.  

In a video that racked up more than 60 million views by Wednesday morning, Carlson said he was interviewing Putin “because it’s our job. We’re in journalism. Our duty is to inform people.”

But Carlson’s monologue, in which he lambasted Western media and claimed it wasn’t making an effort to hear Putin’s side of the story, has sparked backlash from American and Russian journalists.

“Many journalists have interviewed Putin, who also makes frequent, widely covered speeches,” wrote Anne Applebaum, an American journalist and historian, on X (formerly Twitter). “Carlson’s interview is different because he is not a journalist, he’s a propagandist, with a history of helping autocrats conceal corruption.”

Carlson, who was ousted by Fox last year, said the interview would be published “unedited” and “not behind a paywall” on his personal website. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov on Wednesday confirmed that the interview had already taken place, but did not share when it would air.

While Western media outlets have done “scores of interviews” with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Carlson said, “not a single Western journalist has bothered to interview the president of the other country involved in this conflict, Vladimir Putin.”

“Most Americans have no idea why Putin invaded Ukraine or what his goals are now,” he said. “They’ve never heard his voice. That’s wrong.”

While it’s true that Carlson will be the first American to interview Putin since the start of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine almost two years ago, journalists from major outlets in the United States and Europe were quick to point out that this is not for lack of trying.

“Does Tucker really think we journalists haven’t been trying to interview President Putin every day since his full-scale invasion of Ukraine?” Christiane Amanpour, CNN’s chief international anchor, railed on X. “It’s absurd — we’ll continue to ask for an interview, just as we have for years now.”

Similarly, BBC’s Russia Editor Steve Rosenberg posted that the BBC has “lodged several requests with the Kremlin in the last 18 months. Always a ‘no’ for us.”

“Poor, poor Vladimir Putin,” mocked the Wall Street Journal’s Chief Foreign-Affairs Correspondent Yaroslav Trofimov, also on X. “Until now, nobody in the West has had the chance to hear him explain all the excellent reasons for why he had to invade Ukraine.”

“Not in the speech that was broadcast live on every global network the morning of the invasion, and not in countless others,” Trofimov added, referring to Putin’s remarks on Feb. 24, 2022, in which he announced Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This was widely reported, transcribed and aired in the West.

Peskov himself confirmed that the Kremlin has received multiple interview requests from Western journalists. But Moscow sees all these outlets as biased and telling one-sided stories.

They chose Carlson because his position is different, he said.

“It’s not pro-Russian, not pro-Ukrainian, it’s pro-American. It starkly contrasts with the stance of traditional Anglo-Saxon media,” Peskov said.

Western journalists are not the only ones expressing indignation at Carlson’s words; Russian reporters have also called out the conservative provocateur.

“Unbelievable! I am like hundreds of Russian journalists who have had to go into exile to keep reporting about the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine,” Russian journalist Yevgenia Albats wrote. “The alternative was to go to jail. And now this SoB is teaching us about good journalism, shooting from the $1,000 Ritz suite in Moscow.”

Reporters also noted Putin’s ongoing repression of Russian and foreign journalism, which has ramped up since the full-scale invasion started.

At least 1,000 independent Russian journalists have fled the country due to new censorship laws that criminalize coverage critical of the war.

Wall Street Journal correspondent Evan Gershkovich is still imprisoned on espionage charges, and many other foreign reporters have been expelled.

“He says he’s interviewing Putin because freedom of speech is Americans’ birthright,” wrote BBC Eastern Europe Correspondent Sarah Rainsford, who was chucked out of Russia in 2021 after being declared a threat to national security. “I guess he knows that Putin made it a crime to tell the truth about Russia’s war on Ukraine? That independent Russian journalists have fled to avoid prison?”

Carlson has published interviews on X with Argentina’s President Javier Milei and Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, which have racked up hundreds of millions of views.

Donald Trump, who is running for a return to the White House on the Republican 2024 ticket, has openly said he would consider Carlson as a potential running mate. 

Sergey Goryashko contributed reporting.