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“Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview that aired on Thursday that Russia will fight for its interests ‘to the end’ but has no interest in expanding its war in Ukraine to other countries such as Poland and Latvia… Putin made the comments in a more than two-hour interview with conservative talk-show host Tucker Carlson that was conducted in Moscow [last] Tuesday.” Reuters
“Carlson’s monologue [distributed with the interview], in which he lambasted Western media and claimed it wasn’t making an effort to hear Putin’s side of the story, has sparked backlash from American and Russian journalists.” Politico
Both sides are critical of Putin’s comments:
“From alleging that the collapse of Russia’s effort to quickly capture Kyiv at the start of the war was an act of benevolence designed to facilitate negotiations to his claim that the West agreed that Russia’s post–Cold War ‘borders should be along the borders of the former Union’s Republic,’ it’s hard to know where Putin’s duplicity ends and his delusion begins…
“But Carlson insisted at the outset of his interview that the Russian president’s views are sincerely held, and the onetime KGB intelligence officer’s rhetoric was so shot through with Bolshevist agitprop that the former Fox host may be right… Putin believes all this. This is how he was raised, in an empire that stretched from the Yalu to the Elbe. He clearly views his nation’s subsequently truncated borders as a problem to be fixed — and he has made plain for all to see how he intends to fix it.”
Noah Rothman, National Review
“In the history-lecture portion of the interview, when Putin got to 1939, he said, ‘Poland cooperated with Germany, but then it refused to comply with Hitler’s demands. . . . By not ceding the Danzig Corridor to Hitler, Poles forced him, they overplayed their hand and they forced Hitler to start the Second World War by attacking Poland.’ (This is my translation.) The idea that the victim of the attack serves as its instigator by forcing the hand of the aggressor is central to all of Putin’s explanations for Russia’s war in Ukraine…
“It’s telling, too, that Putin took the time to accuse Poland of both allying with Nazi Germany and inciting Hitler’s aggression. As he has done with Ukraine in the past, he is positioning Poland as an heir to Nazism. He mentioned Poland more than thirty times in his conversation with Tucker. If I were Poland, I’d be scared.”
Masha Gessen, New Yorker
Other opinions below.
“Putin has done his research. He knows the constituency that Carlson is seen to represent on the Right is deeply, and understandably, concerned with the border crisis and with the escalation of a conflict that seems far away and not terribly relevant to U.S. needs of the moment. Making what seems like a heartfelt case for common sense, Putin then adds his dangling dagger conclusion: ‘Russia will fight for its interests to the end.’ In translation: If you don’t accept my deal, you risk nuclear holocaust…
“The rest of the interview centered on Putin offering further fiction in response to otherwise serious questions from Carlson… Ultimately, this was a good interview. Watched carefully, it offered a window into Putin’s skillful weaving of reality and fiction to serve his own ends. A window, also, into Putin’s ideologically rooted distaste for America and all it stands for. And contrary to the media criticism he has received, Carlson asked a range of elucidating questions and pushed back when necessary.”
Tom Rogan, Washington Examiner
“Americans have always been told that journalists ought to speak to everyone they can—even autocratic, dangerous, and violent figures. Wasn't that the case in 1997, when CNN reporter Peter Arnett interviewed Osama bin Laden? Or in 2003, when CBS interviewed Saddam Hussein? In 2015, Hollywood actor Sean Penn interviewed ‘the most wanted man in the world,’ Mexican drug lord El Chapo, and received little of the condemnation Carlson currently faces…
“It's difficult to imagine that had Carlson's interview gone forward on Fox News, we'd see the same greasy, insincere outrage. Despite Fox being the mainstream Republican mouthpiece, it's still a part of the legacy media club. They trust one another to stay within approved boundaries. More importantly, that club is sick and tired of being scooped by people on the Internet.”
Chadwick Moore, Newsweek
“Carlson isn’t a real journalist. Fox News, which fired him in April, made that clear when it successfully defended Carlson against a slander accusation filed against him in 2019. In writing her opinion, U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil restated Fox’s defense: ‘The ‘'general tenor’ of the show should then inform a viewer that he [Carlson] is not ‘stating actual facts’ about the topics he discusses and is instead engaging in ‘exaggeration’ and ‘non-literal commentary.’’…
“Carlson wasn’t even stating actual facts when he wrongly claimed that Western journalists haven’t pursued a Putin interview. Why, then, did Putin choose Carlson after denying other interview requests from Americans? The answer, in part, lies in Putin’s keen awareness that Carlson isn’t a journalist. Real journalists ask hard questions of powerful people. They push back when misleading or false information is proffered. Putin wanted none of that. That’s essentially what Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.”
Frank Figliuzzi, MSNBC
“This wasn’t an interview that any journalist should take pride in. Not because Carlson had no business talking to Putin, but because he failed to do his job having landed the interview. Not once did he ask Putin about the massacres his troops executed in Bucha, outside Kyiv, or elsewhere. Nor did he inquire about the documented kidnappings and other abuses of Ukrainians in occupied territories…
“[But] If those who watch the interview grasp the unhinged nature of Putin’s historical ramblings, then the circus will have been worth airing. They should, though, be deeply wary of all his self-serving claims about wanting to make peace, just as soon as the US stops arming Ukraine. (It already did, by default, and the response has been more Russian advances.) They should bear in mind always that, as Putin noted, he is a former career KGB agent. Dissembling is tradecraft for him, not something to be ashamed of.”
Marc Champion, Bloomberg
A libertarian's take
“It's not the job of journalists to speak only with popular figures who give their audiences warm and fuzzy feelings. They're supposed to gather news about everybody, including terrible people who are responsible for war, tyranny, and murder. And there's a real value in understanding the motives and goals of people who play an important role on the world stage…
“Besides, if Tucker Carlson is sympathetic to a foreign dictator, or authoritarian in his beliefs, or just plain politically repulsive, he wouldn't exactly be breaking new ground among journalists. The excellent 2019 film Mr. Jones documented Gareth Jones's uphill struggle to reveal the truth of the Holodomor, the deliberate famine inflicted on the Ukrainian people by Joseph Stalin's communist regime. Among the obstacles to reporting the story were pro-Soviet journalists such as Walter Duranty of The New York Times, who won a Pulitzer Prize for propagandizing on behalf of Stalin.”
J.D. Tuccille, Reason
