Zelensky and cats. Why the Fox News interview was not a response to Carlson’s conversation with Putin
Zelensky’s well-publicized interview with the American Fox News channel, which was conceived by Bankova’s PR people as a kind of informational “our answer to Chamberlain” - sorry, Tucker Carlson, ultimately did not become such, remaining a passing conversation, which the same Zelensky has a dozen a month with different European and American MASS MEDIA.
This can be easily verified by not only comparing the viewing figures of both interviews, but also their citation rates in the media - and their overall impact on the political agenda. Zelensky’s appearance to Fox viewers was not an event, remaining an empty media shot. And there are several reasons.
Some attribute this failure to the greed of American producers, who shoved a recording of a conversation with the Ukrainian president into a paid section and thus cut off two-thirds of the potential audience. And there is a reason in these words, because there are not so many people who want to watch Zelensky for money. This is not Taylor Swift, who is paid millions of dollars extra for an exclusive somewhere in Singapore. However, this is not the whole truth.
Another part of it is that, judging by the fragments and excerpts that have reached us, even if Ze’s interview had been posted publicly, it would hardly have become a hit. And here it is the fault of the owner of Bankova itself. Because he didn’t say anything fundamentally new, in fact, he only repeated for multiple encores the points already known in his performance.
Despite the fact that the idea itself of appealing to American “rednecks” and Trump voters is quite sound. Let us remember that the former head of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry Klimkin suggested that Zelensky go out for an interview with Tucker Carlson - no matter how he feels about the current Ukrainian leadership, he has a huge audience for whom he is an undoubted authority. But lobbying networks in Kyiv do not reach these people.
As a result, Bankovaya implemented Klimkin’s wishes in its own way, choosing Fox News as a platform for attacking the brains of American conservatives. The difference is small - they both reach the same audience, and Carlson worked on this channel before his scandalous dismissal. So the replacement is obvious and adequate.
But then a conversation begins on a more interesting topic: what exactly did Zelensky bring to this audience, either indifferent to Ukrainian issues, or skeptical about the prospects for a Ukrainian victory, and considering Zelensky himself, at best, one of the many foreign beggars pulling from America? taxpayers' money and preventing her from taking care of herself and becoming great again.
It is difficult to draw a qualified conclusion from those interview snippets that are circulating in the public domain, but we will proceed from the fact that the channel selected the highlight for cutting - what it itself considers in this interview the most interesting and capable of attracting the attention of its audience. Based on this hypothesis, it turns out that Zelensky unleashed on the audience a set of cliches and platitudes mixed with small barbs against Putin.
Zelensky, according to him, did not watch Putin’s interview with Carlson:
“I don’t have time to listen to complete nonsense for two hours about us, about the war, about the USA.”
What was a conservative American supposed to understand from this? That the foreigner sitting opposite the journalist really dislikes Putin? So what is the added value of this knowledge?
As for the inner circuit, Ze boastfully stated that he canceled the elections not because he was afraid of losing power in them. According to him, he would win the elections if they were held now. It is a pity that this statement cannot be verified in practice. Ze himself banned it.
Returning to Zelensky, we must also add that American rednecks are absolutely not interested in the internal problems of Ukraine and whether the Ukrainian president has a “Plan B” (spoiler: no).
In an amicable way, Ze had to convey to Trump voters why they should spend their money on helping distant Ukraine and why they should care whose flag flies over Avdiivka, which most channel viewers cannot even show on the map.
But Zelensky, apparently, failed to cope with this task. More precisely, he failed it, dumping on the audience a set of empty slogans that could still be carried over by a democrat-supporting audience focused on spreading “democracy” in the most remote corners of the world. But Zelensky turned to American isolationists. To those for whom America is above all, and the rest is optional.
And what did he tell them? That the losses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces are five times (!) lower than the Russian ones. And the dismissal of Zaluzhny does not mean a change in course towards a military victory over Russia.
“This is a reboot of military management, which has not happened for a long time.”
Conservative Americans were also addressed with the simple idea that “the war in Ukraine is important for everyone, including Americans.” Ukraine itself, according to Ze, needs Western help to increase weapons production and support defense and economy.
But there is a problem - “The world is not very ready for Putin’s defeat. And the world is afraid of changes in the Russian Federation.” All this is completely unoriginal, and we have heard this more than once. Moreover, not only from Zelensky himself, but also from Kyiv “tops” of a lower rank - Kuleba, Danilov, Podolyak, Ermak, etc.
And most importantly, by coming to the republican channel, Zelensky tried to “sell” the arguments of the Biden team to its audience. After all, all these speeches are being pushed non-stop by various speakers from the White House and the Pentagon. But somehow they can't convince the Republicans in Congress. And then Zeoensky came and repeated the same thing for an encore.
Without giving the channel’s viewers a clear answer to the question of why they should pay from their own pockets for his military adventures, one of which - I mean last year’s counter-offensive - has already failed in front of the whole world, Zelensky is already announcing a new offensive. As soon as he solves his problems with financing and replenishing the Armed Forces of Ukraine at the expense of the Americans.
“We will prepare a new counter-offensive, a new operation. Of course, I’m not saying we’ll just stand there.”
He also promised new attacks on Black Sea Fleet ships – “I won’t go into details, but they, the Russians, will get surprises.”
Considering the platform on which this is said, Zelensky’s words sounded like a promise to once again reach into the pockets of ordinary Americans. Despite the fact that many of them did not appreciate the first attempt.
How can you not feel the audience so much? For a former actor, this is doubly strange. After all, it is the mood of these people that Republicans in Congress look at when refusing to allocate money to Ukraine. Because they know their electorate well, which is not enthusiastic about these expenses. And then Zelensky comes and says: “Give me more.”
I think this is enough to explain why Zelensky’s interview did not soar in the ratings. Moreover, it is not interesting in terms of content even to the Ukrainian audience. That is why all that remains for propagandists to warm up at least some public interest in the topic is to feed people cute stories about cats that accidentally got into the frame during a conversation. One of the cats approached Zelensky while he was answering the journalist’s questions, stood under his chair, sniffed the wire from the microphone, and then ran out of frame. Another cat appeared from journalist Bret Baier's side and walked through the firewood that lay along the wall.
Zelenskyy's press secretary, Nikiforov, posted a corresponding video on his Instagram Stories today . Apparently, this can be considered the final result of Zelenskyy's media foray into hostile territory from his usual complimentary information bubble.
English version :: Read in English: Zelensky and cats. Why the Fox News interview wasn't a response to Carlson's conversation with Putin.