Tucker Carlson says he will interview Vladimir Putin in Moscow

Tucker Carlson, who has hosted an online video series on the social media platform X since he was fired by Fox News last spring, announced on Tuesday that he will “soon” conduct an interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Carlson did not say when the interview will be conducted, nor when it will air. But the interview would be the first that Putin has given to an American media personality since his June 2021 conversation with NBC News correspondent Keir Simmons.

Carlson had stoked speculation of such an interview when he was spotted a few days ago at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow.

The Kremlin has not yet confirmed the Carlson interview, though spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Monday that “many foreign journalists come to Russia every day, many continue to work here, and we welcome this.”

Carlson has frequently dismissed criticism of Putin over the years. As Russia amassed troops on the border of Ukraine two years ago for what would soon turn into a bloody invasion, he dismissed the conflict as a mere “border dispute.”

In the video, taken from a rooftop in Moscow, Carlson said he weighed the pros and cons of interviewing Putin for several months but ultimately decided it was worth doing. “Our duty is to inform people,” he said, adding: “Most Americans have no idea why Putin invaded Ukraine, or what his goals are now. They’ve never heard his voice. That’s wrong. Americans have a right to know all they can about a war they’re implicated in, and we have the right to tell them about it, because we are Americans, too.”

Carlson called the war a “human disaster,” noting the high death count.

He criticized the American media for speaking with Ukrainian people and conducting interviews with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, which he referred to as “propaganda” and “fawning pep sessions specifically designed to amplify Zelensky’s demand that the U.S. enter more deeply into a war in Eastern Europe.”

He also chided Western journalists for not interviewing Putin, a notion that veteran CNN journalist Christiane Amanpour rejected as “absurd” in a post on X.

“We’ll continue to ask for an interview, just as we have for years now,” Amanpour wrote.

Before he was ousted from his prime-time Fox News perch in April, Carlson regularly used his show to push back on criticism of Putin. A few days before Russia’s invasion, Carlson conducted an odd, politically charged rhetorical argument to suggest that Americans had no reason to hate the Russian president. “Has Putin ever called me a racist? Has he threatened to get me fired for disagreeing with him? Has he shipped every middle-class job in my town to Russia? Did he manufacture a worldwide pandemic that wrecked my business and kept me indoors for two years? … These are fair questions, and the answer to all of them is no.” In March 2022, Carlson said that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was “effectively encouraged by the Biden administration.”

In November 2019, Carlson said he would root for Russia in a potential war with Ukraine. He has also referred to Zelensky as a “Ukrainian pimp” - rhetoric that, as The Washington Post reported last spring, caused Fox News founder Rupert Murdoch to sour on his popular employee.

In his video on Tuesday, though, Carlson said that he has requested an interview with Zelensky.

This breed of commentary has made Carlson a star in Russian media, where his programming is often lauded by government-affiliated broadcasters. Last year, the state-run Rossiya 24 network ran a teaser featuring Carlson’s online show, though he denied any involvement with the effort.

According to the European Federation of Journalists, Russia is imprisoning 23 journalists, including Wall Street Journal correspondent Evan Gershkovich, who has been held since March. Many Russian journalists have also been forced into exile, fearing for their safety.

Carlson said his company paid for the trip to Moscow and did not take money from any outside group or government.

In addition to streaming videos on X, Carlson offers exclusive access to some video content on his website for $9 per month. But he suggested that his Putin interview will appear free on X.

One perk for subscribers is a weekly “Ask Tucker” series, where subscribers can ask him questions. In his latest video from the series, posted three days before his clip from Moscow, he wrestled with a question about male-pattern baldness.