Putin not only has declined to participate in interviews with the free press, but over the past two years he has waged a war against the media, locking up journalists, fining Big Tech companies for hosting “fake” information about the Ukraine invasion, and pushing through censorship laws that clamp down on news organizations. Meanwhile, as Carlson implied that US news organizations are not interested in telling the Russian story, The Wall Street Journal’s Evan Gershkovich sits in a prison for doing precisely that. We receive a lot of applications for interviews with the president.” Peskov hinted at the reason that Carlson was selected, saying he “has a position that is different from the rest” of Western media. Asked on Wednesday if no Western journalist had attempted to interview Putin, Peskov said, “No, Mr. “It’s absurd - we’ll continue to ask for an interview, just as we have for years now.”Įven Putin’s own spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said Carlson was outright wrong on the matter. “Does Tucker really think we journalists haven’t been trying to interview President Putin every day since his full scale invasion of Ukraine?” CNN’s Christiane Amanpour rhetorically remarked upon seeing Carlson’s claim. The actual reason is quite simple: Putin has declined to grant access - a fact that should make it all the more obvious as to why Carlson, of all people, has been welcomed into the Kremlin palace, while others have been denied. It is true that no Western journalist has interviewed Putin since the onset of the war, but it isn’t for a lack of trying. While technically true, Carlson is lying by omission, the very thing he accused the Western press of doing in the video he posted online. “At the same time our politicians and media outlets have been doing this, promoting a foreign leader like he’s a new consumer brand,” Carlson said, “not a single Western journalist has bothered to interview the president of the other country involved in this conflict: Vladimir Putin.” The right-wing extremist, who has lauded autocrats in recent years, claimed English-speaking outlets are “corrupt” and “lie” to their audiences as they disseminate “propaganda of the ugliest kind.” (Projection much?)Īs a supposed example of manipulative media behavior, Carlson accused journalists of engaging in “fawning pep sessions” when interviewing Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky, who the former Fox News host asserted he would like to earnestly sit down with, but once likened to a rat. In a video posted to X announcing the sit-down Tuesday - the first interview Putin has granted with a Western media figure since his full-scale invasion of Ukraine two years ago - Carlson predictably and dishonestly villainized the press. Tucker Carlson’s interview with Vladimir Putin hasn’t been posted online yet, but he is already doing the Russian authoritarian’s bidding.
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