6 bizarre moments from Tucker Carlson’s interview with Vladimir Putin

Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host who has now sought refuge on Elon Musk’s Twitter/X, has caused controversy after conducting an interview with Russian president Vladimir Putin about the war in Ukraine, in which the politician made a number of bizarre claims about the ongoing conflict.

Carlson has previously said Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky’s finances should be audited before aid is sent to the country, and argued that people should “take the side of Russia” in the war sparked by Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine back in 2022 – interventions which have led to the Kremlin ordering Russian state TV to air more of his Fox News programme (back when he had one).

And yet despite this, Carlson proceeded to defend his decision to chat to Putin in a Twitter video on Tuesday, by accusing US media outlets of “government propaganda” when it came to their interviews with Zelensky.

“Not a single Western journalist has bothered to interview the president of the other country involved in this conflict, Vladimir Putin,” he claimed.

Except, Steve Rosenberg, BBC News’ Russia Editor, pointed out they had “lodged several requests with the Kremlin in the last 18 months”, to which the response was “always a ‘no’”.

This led to people responding that while Rosenberg is a journalist, Carlson is a “propogandist”.

So what bizarre claims did Putin make during his chat with Carlson?

“The United States controls all of the world’s media”

“In the war of propaganda, it is very difficult to defeat the United States controls all of the world’s media and many European media,” Putin said.

Not true, of course. North Korea has a state controlled news agency in the form of the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), to give just one example of how this is nonsense.

Boris Johnson “talked us out” of settlement with Ukraine

“We prepared a huge document in Istanbul that was initialled by the head of the Ukrainian delegation. He had fixed his signature to some of the provisions – not to all of it.

“We were ready to sign it, and the war would have been over months ago – 18 months ago. However, Prime Minister [Boris] Johnson came, talked us out of it, and we missed that chance,” Putin claimed.

Just last month, the former UK prime minister told The Timesthat the suggestion he had sabotaged a peace deal was “nothing but total nonsense and Russian propaganda”.

A history lesson which lasted for 30 minutes

Not long into the interview, Putin said: “So if you don’t mind, I will take only 30 seconds or one minute to give you a short reference to history for giving you a little historical background.”

It actually lasted for around 30 minutes of a two-hour long interview, and at one point Putin even ordered one of his aides to hand him a copy of letters from the 17th century written by Bohdan Khmelnytsky, a military official for the Ukrainian Cossacks (known as the Zaporozhian Cossacks) who led a rebellion against Polish rule.

“We should thank God they didn’t let you” into the CIA

Not afraid to take aim at his interviewer, Putin paused at one point to note Carlson once tried – and failed – to work for the Central Intelligence Agency or CIA in the US.

“The organisation you wanted to join back in the day, as I understand. We should thank God they didn’t let you in, although it is a serious organisation, I understand,” he said.

Ouch.

Repeating “denazification” claims

Putin once again alluded to the false idea that Ukraine is a Nazi state (as a reminder, when Russia invaded the country back in February 2022, he said it was about the “denazification” of Ukraine), despite President Zelensky being Jewish.

He told Carlson: “It is necessary to stop this practice and prevent the dissemination of this concept.

“If [Ukraine] consider themselves a separate people, they have the right to do so, but not on the basis of Nazism, the Nazi ideology.”

Implying Poland was to blame for the Second World War

Going back to Putin’s lengthy history lesson during the interview, Putin rambled: “Before World War Two, Poland collaborated with Hitler and although it did not yield to Hitler’s demands, it still participated in the partitioning of Czechoslovakia, together with Hitler, as the Poles had not given the Danzig corridor to Germany, and went too far, pushing Hitler to start World War Two by attacking them.

“Why was it Poland against whom the war started on 1 September 1939? Poland turned out to be uncompromising and Hitler had nothing to do but start implementing his plans with Poland.”

Several sources – including The Holocaust Explained (managed by the Weiner Holocaust Library in London) and the Holocaust Encyclopaedia – report that actually, the Nazis invaded Poland while spreading propaganda that citizens of the country were persecuting “ethnic Germans”.

What’s been the wider reaction to the interview?

Needless to say, people aren’t pleased with Carlson enabling Putin to spread Russian propaganda:

Again, the whole interview clocks in at just over two hours, and we had to listen to a considerable amount of nonsense from Carlson and Putin, so you don’t have to.

You’re welcome.

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