Former prime-time Fox News host Tucker Carlson, long known as Donald Trump’s cheerleader, conducted a wide-ranging two-hour interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Carlson has consistently advocated for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, posting interviews on both his own site and Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter). Within hours of being posted, it had been viewed more than 90 million times, according to Kremlin spokesperson Pravda.
When the two faced off in a large, virtually empty Kremlin office, Putin immediately put Karlsson on the defensive, demanding: “Are you doing a talk show or are you having a serious conversation?” He then gave his interlocutor a 25-minute history lesson to show that Ukrainians and Russians are not actually separate peoples. It is a mixture of mythology and actual history dating back more than a thousand years.
He also had a hard time insisting from the beginning who was leading the interviews early on. It was a typical Putin power play. From then on, things were smooth sailing for President Putin.
The interview was wide-ranging and covered a wide range of topics, including Ukraine, China, multipolarity, and Putin’s opinions on several former US presidents and his predecessors Lenin, Stalin, and Yeltsin. In discussing U.S. politics, Putin referred to what he called the belligerent “mindset” of Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and America’s foreign policy elite.
NATO gets slammed, Maga gets a boost
When it comes to the Ukraine war, the Russian president predictably condemned NATO’s expansionism and what he perceived as a threat to his country’s security. He told how he extended a hand of friendship to the United States. [expand Nato eastward]. We are now as bourgeois as you are. We are a market economy and there is no communist party. Let’s negotiate. ” However, his proposal was opposed by the American elite.
And, as expected, both interviewer and interviewee took advantage of the opportunity to boost Donald Trump and his Make America Great Again (Maga) voter base. President Trump has already said he will end U.S. military aid to Ukraine “very quickly” by withdrawing U.S. aid, and Putin emphasized in an interview that “we will end U.S. military aid to Ukraine very quickly.” It will be over within a few weeks. ”
But Putin chose not to elaborate on what Trump’s presidency could do for him. Instead, he took aim at America’s Ukraine policy in an attempt to distract from America’s domestic woes and focused on immigration, a sore point for many swing voters.
“We have border issues, we have immigration issues, we have national debt issues,” he told Carlson. “Should we fight in Ukraine if there is nothing else to do?” Wouldn’t it be better to negotiate with Russia? ”
The Russian president says that U.S. foreign policy decisions are captured by what he calls “elite thinking,” and while there is a good chance that President Trump will change U.S. policy toward Russia, it also means that “elites” I floated the idea that this would only happen if things changed.
Carlson filled in the gap by echoing President Trump’s other key theme: the power of the “deep state.” So what you’re saying sounds like you’re describing a system that’s not run by elected people. ”
Addressing America in turmoil
This controversial interview took place at a time of great turmoil within the United States and internationally. Trump, whom Carlson campaigned for in the 2020 campaign, is facing a series of trials, some of which, if convicted, could send him to prison before the November 2024 presidential election. It also includes some lawsuits.
The U.S. Supreme Court is also scheduled to rule on January 6, 2021, on whether President Trump should be completely removed from the ballot on charges of sedition. Congress also remains divided over providing further financial aid to Ukraine.
Trump is likely to win the Republican presidential nomination, but faces a primary challenge from Nikki Haley. Ms. Haley is now a key focus of opposition to Mr. Trump’s person, not the ideals of Trumpism. Like Joe Biden, Haley, a former South Carolina governor and President Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, is a champion of U.S. support for Ukraine’s resistance to Russian military power.
Biden, and indeed Trump, campaigned on the idea of ending America’s “forever wars.” But the United States is currently embroiled in a series of global conflicts, from Ukraine through the Middle East to escalating tensions over Taiwan. People of all stripes are lining up to warn that the risk of another major global conflict appears to be growing.
There is no shortage of influential Americans on both sides of politics saying the same thing. And a survey conducted by the American Psychological Association shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine last year found that nearly 7 in 10 Americans feared we were in the early stages of World War III. It turned out that there was.
So while Mr. Carlson and Mr. Trump are partisan Republicans, their positions on Russia, President Putin, and the war in Ukraine reflect the broader mood among many Americans.
Some members of the Trump administration from 2017 to 2021 wanted to get closer to Russia to counter China’s rise in a kind of “Russia as the carrot, China as the stick” approach.
Bipartisan voices are also growing in Washington. This is reflected in the emergence of the Quincy Institute for Responsible State Planning, a think-tank funded by billionaire conservative Charles Koch and billionaire liberal internationalist George Soros, and has led to US intervention. He advocates a retreat from the principle of “restraint.”
Mr. Karlsson’s interview with Mr. Putin will not change the minds of committed partisans on either side. But for those hearing the Russian leader’s extensive discussion in his own words for the first time, the interview, long and at times rambling, likely humanized Putin. He came as a historically knowledgeable, articulate, serious and level-headed person. And he’s very determined to the rightness of his cause.