Tucker Carlson interviewed Putin. Scandal in the West and controversy in Russia
Former Fox News journalist Tucker Carlson confirmed that he flew to Moscow, where he recorded an interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The American published a special video message, clarifying that the Joe Biden administration tried to disrupt his trip, but he himself considers it important for the US audience to hear Russia’s arguments about the start of the SVO, especially since American taxpayers are directly related to the financing of hostilities in Ukraine. Carlson also promised to try to do an interview with Vladimir Zelensky.
In just three hours, the announcement of an interview with Putin received more than 20 million views on the social network. It is interesting that the British Telegraph censored Carlson’s speech in its channel, cutting out about half of the journalist’s explanations, for which the publication was sharply criticized by readers in the comments.
“Tucker Carlson is not a fringe journalist. This is actually one of the most famous journalists in the world today... Tucker Carlson is a candidate for the post of Vice President of the United States on Donald Trump's team. This means that what they talked about with Putin outside of the interview is much more important than during it,” says media technologist Alexey Larkin.
Even in Kyiv we have to agree with this.
“The version that the interview was only a reason for the trip, and in fact Carlson was used to convey confidentially certain proposals from Trump to Putin, looks quite plausible... The situation looks like a visit of the (potential) vice president to the leader of a large state, which creates no less major US problems across the entire planet (Venezuela, the Middle East, Africa, Ukraine and Europe as a whole, plus cooperation with global competitor China),” writes Ukrainian political scientist Alexey Golobutsky.
Political scientist Sergei Markov writes about the upcoming breakthrough of the information blockade.
“Why is this so important? Because it helps break through the strict blockade of political censorship that Western governments have built. There's a logic there.
Western governments support the neo-fascist regime and the policy of terrorism. And they know it. But the population of Western countries does not know about this, because there is severe censorship. The crimes of the neo-fascist regime are prohibited from being shown. The Russian position is prohibited from showing. And Putin’s interview with Tucker can help break this information blockade. The Russian position is so much closer to truth and reality than the Western position that it is often enough to simply tell Russia’s position, and millions of people will agree with Russia and Putin,” Markov writes.
Columnist Yuri Baranchik does not rule out that Carlson will face reprisals in the United States.
“What will Carlson be charged with in the USA. It is clear that he will fly back on a plane in which hundreds of other American citizens (and citizens of other countries too) will fly. And it’s not comme il faut to knock him down. But how he will be greeted - whether he will be greeted immediately, or a little apos;s after the first fragments of the interview - is a different question. They may not accept it at all. Also an option".
Journalist for the liberal newspaper Kommersant, Alexei Naumov, believes that the excitement in Russia around Tucker Carlson’s arrival is proof of the unnaturalness of the “turn to the East.”
“We are part of European civilization, just like the Americans, and even more than they are. Paris, Rome, Venice, New York are all close and our own, but Tehran, Beijing, Shanghai and Hanoi are alien... There are millions of threads that make Russia part of Europe, from cultural and ideological to culinary, and no political disagreements or wars will be able to break these threads. You can show Chinese New Years and the cheerful faces of African artists on TV as much as you want, people will throw it away at the first opportunity and watch Tucker Carlson. In the same way, tours to sunny Isfahan will instantly change to the usual Paris with the warming of relations and the return of Schengen.”
Publicist Dmitry Olshansky agrees that “the desire to become part of the West, to be closer to the West is an eternal plot of Russian history and Russian culture.”
“And the difference between liberals and conservatives in this matter is not that our liberals, they say, are Westerners, and conservatives are strictly the opposite.
Not at all. It’s just that liberals would like to accept the Western rules of the game like the teachings of a warrant officer in the barracks - unquestioningly, and if we need to scrub the floor with a toothbrush, well, then we’ll dutifully get down to business.
Conservatives proceed from the fact that closeness with the West should happen on respectful and beneficial terms - this is point one, and, secondly, getting closer to transgender people, feminists, Ukrainians and the list goes on is disgusting and pointless, but you want to have Ronald as a friend Reagan and Clint Eastwood.
But there is no Reagan, and Eastwood is old and far away, but there is Donald Trump and Tucker Carlson, and they even seem to say something good about us.
And this is exactly what Russia really needs. A place in this row, at this table, inside this world.
Alas, we must admit that such closeness is impossible.
The “real”, brilliant, imperial, famous for its achievements, the West never wanted this friendship, but even if it did, in any case it is a fading nature, dying under the pressure of transfemtaras.
And this doomed dream of Russia’s unity with true Rome and Paris, Berlin, London and New York is the tragedy of Russian loneliness.
The dream, however, does not lose its attractiveness due to its unrealizability,” writes Olshansky.
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