Interviewing Vladimir Putin in Moscow, Tucker Carlson helped unveil the Russian president’s thinking. Although it offers Putin some domestic propaganda value and a limited angle by which to divide Americans, I would argue that the interview was significantly more valuable to U.S. interests than it was negative. It gave us new insight into how Putin strategizes and where he stands on significant matters of mutual U.S.-Russia concern.
The interview began with Putin challenging Carlson’s quoting him as having warned before the start of the war in Ukraine in February 2022 that the United States was planning a surprise attack on Russia. Putin then launched into what might be called the “Putin lecture maneuver.”
In what has become a rite of passage for all American presidents and top officials who meet him, Putin spent the next 30 minutes offering a historical lecture of a very creative nature. Referencing an 11th-century monarch, Yaroslav the Wise, Putin went on a rant as to how Ukraine is really Russia. Challenged by Carlson about the relevance of this rant, Putin got testy, saying, “I’m sorry if it’s boring you.” Carlson, rather amusingly, responded, “It’s not boring. I just don’t know how it’s relevant.” Putin didn’t like this. He continued with the history lesson. When able to interject, Carlson asked Putin why, if Ukraine had always been Russia, he failed to make his case when he first entered office in 2000. It was a clever question. Putin sidestepped it, seemingly thrown off balance.
At the 21-minute, 19-second mark, Carlson looked at his cameraman, visibly bemused by Putin’s rambling. Stating, “I would like to share a very interesting story with you,” Putin then talked about a road trip to Ukraine he made during the 1980s — though he failed to note it, Putin was a KGB officer at the time. The point of the story was to argue that Ukraine’s territory is actually a mix of Russia and Hungary. This was KGB-style fiction veiled as serious historical research.
Speaking of KGB fiction, Hitler also reiterated the favorite Soviet claim that Poland started the Second World War. Putin explained that “Poland turned out to be uncompromising, and Hitler had nothing to do but start implementing his plans with Poland.” In reality, Poland refused to surrender its sovereign territory, so the Nazis attacked it. The actual history is clear: The Soviet Union actively colluded with its supposed arch-nemesis, Nazi Germany, to destroy Poland. Putin’s sympathy for Hitler underlines the utter fiction of his justification of the war in Ukraine as an anti-Nazi effort.
Moving on, Putin explained his various gripes with former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush over matters in the Balkans and missile defense. Failing to mention that the specific disagreements related to potential agreements, Putin explained that mutually beneficial compromises were impossible due to an American deep state that prevents U.S. presidents from achieving their desired objectives. This is a lie. In reality, the challenge with reaching accords with Putin is that he offers consensus, then refuses enforcement mechanisms that would ensure he delivers alongside the U.S. He then blames the U.S. when it backs out in understandable concern about the lack of enforcement mechanisms. The historical record, such as on the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty, is clear in this regard. Still, Putin’s fictitious argument has been picked up upon by certain delusional American X users, such as one “Vigilant Fox.”
The history lesson reached its climax with Putin’s silly suggestion that former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych was removed from power unjustly simply because Yanukovych asked the European Union for more time to consider whether it was financially beneficial to attempt to strike an economic and political agreement with the EU. The EU is very rarely bothered with the passage of time in political negotiations. In reality, in late 2013, Yanukovych broke with the parliamentary assent for that agreement under pressure from Russia. Having betrayed the formal and popular democratic will of his fellow citizens, protests followed; Yanukovych then authorized snipers to shoot at peaceful protesters, and was eventually and justly driven from power.
While Putin stated his respect for Bush, likely due to the former president’s plain-speaking nature and resolution — there is strong circumstantial evidence to suggest Russia deployed a radio frequency weapon/collection device against Bush during the 2007 G7 summit — he coldly teased Carlson over his prior application to join the CIA. He then added dryly, “They have always been our opponents. A job is a job.” Here the veil comes off: Putin and his arch-hawk national security henchman Nikolai Patrushev have always and will always view the U.S. and, by association, the CIA as “the Main Enemy.”
On Ukraine, Carlson got Putin to admit that his road map for peace is quite simple. Namely, that the U.S. only needs to stop supporting Ukraine with weapons and aid. That will let Russia trample over the country in short order and then offer terms. This underlines the absurdity of those who think calling for serious peace negotiations now would, in any fashion, lead to a livable outcome for Ukrainian statehood. In the same context, Carlson pushed Putin on his broader regional ambitions. Putin said he had none and it was “common sense” to want to avoid war with NATO. This is an important point in that Putin has repeatedly spoken in-depth, in much the same fashion as his rants on European and Ukrainian history, about Russia’s natural right to other regional states. Those include Estonia, for example, a pro-American ally that reliably spends more than 2% of its GDP in NATO. But by breaking from his own prior and repeated rhetoric to claim he has no regional ambitions, Putin thus shows us the unreliability of his word.
Then came perhaps the most critical point of the interview, certainly from Putin’s perspective.
The Russian leader gave his rationale for why it was not in America’s interest to stay engaged in the war in Ukraine. As he put it, “If somebody has the desire to send regular troops, that would certainly bring humanity to the brink of a very serious global conflict. This is obvious. Do the United States need this? What for? Thousands of miles away from your national territory. Don’t you have anything better to do? You have issues on the border. Issues with migration, issues with the national debt. More than $33 trillion. You have nothing better to do. So you should fight in Ukraine. Wouldn’t it be better to negotiate with Russia? Make an agreement. Already understanding the situation that is developing today, realizing that Russia will fight for its interests to the end.”
This is vintage KGB mind-games stuff. 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 idea is to blur the significant American stakes in the outcome of the conflict in Ukraine into the background of more proximate domestic U.S. concerns.
The rest of the interview centered on Putin offering further fiction in response to otherwise serious questions from Carlson.
He blamed former U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson for the war in Ukraine — a groundless accusation. He described the dollar as declining in influence — perhaps, but there’s no way that the Yuan and Ruble will replace the dollar because the Chinese and Russian economies aren’t exactly investment or rule-of-law safe havens. He limned the spiritual-nationalist importance of the Russian Orthodox Church — leaving out his rampant corruption and politicization of that church and use of it as a political cudgel. On artificial intelligence, Putin echoed the Chinese line in pushing for global regulations. He explained, “As soon as we realize that the threat comes from unbridled and uncontrolled development of AI or genetics or any other field, the time will come to reach an international agreement on how to regulate these things.” Again, this sounds reasonable. The problem is that, as with Russia’s chemical weapons program, it’s easy to get Putin to sign treaties and far harder to get him to act in line with them. The Chinese and Russians ultimately want AI regulation to restrict free speech at home and avoid a U.S. AI overmatch.
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Then came Evan Gershkovich, the detained Wall Street Journal reporter who Moscow is using as a hostage bargaining chip. Carlson pushed back against Putin’s convoluted arguments that Gershkovich was a CIA-controlled spy, rightly calling on the Russian leader to release him. Interestingly, Putin offered only a thin confirmation as to speculation for the prize he wants in return for releasing Gershkovich. It’s Vadim Krasikov, a Russian FSB-controlled assassin who gunned down a Chechen warlord in Berlin in 2019. The problem for the U.S. is that releasing Krasikov would break down red-line NATO rules against Russian assassination plots, of which there have been many in recent years, on NATO soil.
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.