An interview between Tucker Carlson and Russian President Vladimir Putin will be aired on Thursday, the American right-wing talk show host announced.
Carlson said in a post on his Instagram account Wednesday that the already-recorded sit-in will be broadcast on his website at 6pm ET (11pm GMT).
The former Fox News host, who is a key ally of 2024 presidential candidate Donald Trump and a vocal opponent of U.S. military aid to Ukraine, has been a vocal supporter of President Putin since the February 2022 invasion of Russia. visited Moscow for his first interview with a Western journalist.
Karlsson’s access to President Vladimir Putin stands in sharp contrast to the detention of other foreign journalists in Russia. Two Americans are currently imprisoned in Russia: Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovitch and Radio Free Europe’s Ars Kurmasheva.
For years, this media provocateur has portrayed America as a nation in decline under attack from Democrats, Black Lives Matter defenders, so-called “woke” protesters, and communism. Ta.
But a right-wing cable network has paid a nearly $800 million settlement to end a defamation lawsuit over false claims that vote tabulation company Dominion Voting Systems engaged in fraud in the 2020 presidential election. A few days later, in April, his popular show on Fox ended. From Trump.
Since then, he has aired a show on X (formerly Twitter), but his interview with President Putin was his biggest score since leaving Fox.
Carlson’s surprising scoop comes as U.S. aid to Ukraine has dried up due to Republican opposition in Washington and the Ukrainian military is scrambling to secure ammunition.
U.S. Senate Democrats will make a new attempt Thursday to restore U.S. military funding to Ukraine after Republican chaos killed a first vote on a multibillion-dollar aid package.
But the policy’s future is uncertain in the Republican-controlled House.
～Shrink free press～
The White House said early Wednesday that Putin should not be given uncritical excuses to justify the war in Ukraine.
“I don’t think we need another interview to understand President Putin’s atrocities,” said National Security Council spokesman John Kirby.
Karlsson’s interview also comes against the backdrop of the Kremlin’s two-decade dismantling of press freedom in the country.
However, the Kremlin denies Carlson’s own claims that he was the only Western journalist who “went out of his way to request” a meeting with Putin since the invasion of Ukraine.
Asked whether Karlsson was the only one who had requested a meeting with Putin, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters: “We have received many requests to meet with the president.”
Peskov added that Carlson’s more pro-Russian position contrasts with what he calls “traditional Anglo-Saxon media.”
Putin has long been admired by some on the U.S. far right, including President Trump, who has a history of praising Kremlin leaders, calling them “genius” and more trustworthy than U.S. intelligence agencies. It has been.
Nro/Cow