The Tucker-Carlson – Vladmir Putin Interview: Opinion & Consequences

Thursday’s interview between US independent journalist Tucker Carlson and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow has raised a significant amount of commentary and controversy. What is unusual – or is perhaps the new normal – is the variety of opinions considering both the event and the contents. Before the interview was even aired, Carlson was accused of being a ‘traitor’ to his country. Afterward, he was accused of being a sycophant. Yet others labeled the event ‘important’ and ‘ground-breaking’. So, which was it – or could it really be all of these?

About Tucker Carlson

Firstly, let’s look at Carlson’s position. Recently fired from Fox News, and with a reputation for being a right-wing conspiracist, capable of avoiding difficult questions while bigging up irrelevant minutiae, he has cultivated a controversial image. He is certainly not woke and is indifferent to being offensive. He is certainly a flawed journalist and is prepared to let his sometimes eccentric personal opinions color his commentary and interviews. In this way, he breaks the fourth wall like an actor speaking directly to the camera. But is that in itself a bad thing?

The American public doesn’t seem to think so. In a political age of uncertainty, conspiracies, and mistrust, Carlson manages to scoop up much of this in his own commentary. He has taught his viewers at least to question. The problem Carlson has is that he is perceived by his detractors as seldom asking the right ones.

Yet this attitude is also problematic – it smacks of bias. “Don’t ask that question – ask this one!” is also a form of censorship. For all Carlson’s journalistic faults, he at least avoids falling into corporate and political correctness. He is not a great journalist, and he sometimes ends up with odd conclusions. But he is sincere. Tucker Carlson is a man who would buy you a beer and listen to what you had to say. Many of today’s journalists would expect you to host and then spend their time telling you how it is. That difference is why Putin gave him two hours of time and has rebuffed all other attempts to reach out to him. Putin knows that the journalism will not be re-spun into an alternative narrative.

It should also be noted that in interviewing Putin, Carlson set himself up for criticism and potential punishment. Even before the interview aired, politicians in the US questioned whether, as a US citizen he should be allowed to re-enter. Others called him a traitor. EU politicians wondered whether he should be sanctioned and banned from entering Europe. For an interview?

The Aftermath

I’m not going to comment on the interview itself (which was given away free and can be viewed in full here on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOCWBhuDdDo ) except to say that Putin appeared affable, and patient while also showing a deep knowledge of Russian political history. Carlson almost appeared as a student in a master class of Russian political science.

Here, Putin was illustrating the significant background to the existential question ‘What is Ukraine?’. The rhetoric also appears in history books and is backed up in State archives – from both ancient Russia, Imperial Russia, the Soviet era, and now contemporary Russia. A silent point Putin made here is that all were different, yet common threads run through. It is also important to note that this is the Russian version of history. History itself can be subjective and viewed from different angles.

Here, the Western, post-interview response was basic and oft-repeated: “Putin lies.”

However, it is a journalistic and political mistake to suggest this. It is not a lie if Russia – and this was the Russian President – believes the historical narrative to be true.

It is also not a lie if the Western perspective is different. This gap is what is known as ‘politics’. Bridging it is the job of diplomats.

So, in terms of the content, Putin was perfectly within his rights to explain Russia’s version of events that concerned Russia. Where things start to get messy is when the West claims rights to what it says should be Russia’s version of events. That begins to get into the realms of counter-intelligence, deliberate misinformation, and – lies.

The ex-British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, wrote in a newspaper article the day after Carlson’s interview that ‘it was full of lies’. (This came from a man who faced political censure in the UK for the same offense). Johnson laid down one example, where differing opinions exist between Russia and Poland as to the extent of the former’s collusion with Nazi Germany. That’s partially relevant today to the neo-Nazi accusations surrounding elements of the current Ukraine government. But at the same time, Johnson failed to mention that Putin had laid the hand of responsibility for Ukraine not reaching an immediate agreement with Russia at Johnson’s feet. The British Prime Minister, Putin said, had expressly advised Ukraine to fight. Johnson, in his newspaper column the day after, had plenty to say about Putin’s lies. But he didn’t discuss his accusations. Perhaps he forgot. As Putin dryly noted, “Where is Mr. Johnson now?”

Olaf Scholz, the German Chancellor, also stated that Putin’s comments were “a pack of lies” without saying which comments were - or providing any evidence to the contrary. Scholz then expresses the view that he alone is to be believed as the arbiter of truth.

What the aftermath of this interview really showed then is what Putin mentioned several times during the Carlson interview: the West is too egotistical, arrogant, and caught up in its own narrative to consider any other perspective.

That is several steps along the path to being told what to think, what to say, not to question, and to follow the Government line. Putin called the perpetrators ‘the Western elites’ and went so far as to suggest that democratic governments are now dictated to by such people. That’s classic Tucker Carlson territory.

Interestingly, and little known, is that American States have quietly been banning George Orwell’s ‘1984’ – a book that warns against dictatorship - from its classrooms. That process, in omitting books about class struggle and uprisings against government - began in Iowa just last year. (Google: ”Orwell, 1984, Iowa”).

What the interview showed can be likened to Putin raising the skirts of the West, looking underneath, and inviting us all to look at what lies within. According to Russia, a construction is being built within Western democracy. And on it is painted a name and a number: Room 101.

That is what all the fuss is about and that is why the West is suddenly calling it all out as ‘lies’. But are they? The implications if not require significant thought.