Tucker Carlson’s interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin has been slammed as “political theater” by a former senior defense official.
Peter Zwack, a former senior U.S. defense official and military attaché to Russia, criticized the meeting, saying Carlson did not go far enough toward Putin.
The interview on X (formerly Twitter) has been viewed over 200 million times.
Reuters
Mr Zwack told GB News: “At the end of the day, if you step back from there, I think it was theater. But Carlson never got into human rights issues. They were basic.” .
“He threw a softball, but I think Putin turned things around. He didn’t seem to be in his prime, but he seemed to be at Karlsson’s mercy a little bit.”
“He speaks almost messianically about Russian history, about the Tsars, about Catherine II, about the Soviet Union, about how Ukraine has always been part of Russia and doesn’t deserve to be a state. I mean, Jesus Christ. It’s about.
“It became a mouthpiece, but in many ways it was probably damaging to President Putin, and it was probably damaging to Carlson, except for those who already believed in Carlson. I think this is political theater. “And I didn’t go into the most interesting questions,” which I think a good interviewer would have done. ”
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President Vladimir Putin speaks in interview with US TV host Tucker Carlson
Reuters
Following Mr Navalny’s death following Mr Carlson’s interview, Mr Nigel told GB News: “Tucker is a friend of mine, but I think the biggest failure of his interview was that he didn’t even ask a question about Mr. Navalny. That’s what I thought,” he said at the time.
“It appears that Mr. Tucker’s judgment was very, very poor judgment. That question needed to be asked when there was an election coming up in Russia.”
Alex Dean told GB News: “He went too far and became what can only be described as a useful idiot for the Putin regime, allowing himself to give this weird, irregular interview. When asked why he invaded Ukraine, he said, well, he didn’t know what to do with us. I want to take you back to the original world.” The 1300s and the Black Death.
“He goes on to talk about the abundance of gumdrop smiles on the streets of Russia and how happy people are in the supermarkets. And then, in the very week that pathetic interview ended, President Putin’s main dissidents are killed in custody.”
President Putin says he was surprised that US TV host Tucker did not ask him more pointed questions. carlson He spoke in an interview that made headlines around the world last week.
He told Russian TV interviewer Pavel Zarubin that he wished Karlsson had acted more aggressively and that he would have had the right to respond just as harshly.
“To be honest, I thought he would act aggressively and ask so-called pointed questions,” the Russian president said.
“I was not only ready for this, I wanted it because it gives me the opportunity to respond in kind.”