Tucker Carson is to air an interview with Vladimir Putin

[liberty]

Tucker Carson is to air an interview with Vladimir Putin, and the left is outraged. They forget about Jane Fonda and the Liberal journalist who supported our enemies in the past. When you plant deadly plants in the past, you often harvest poisonous fruit in the future. Ukraine is a test; if we lose in Ukraine, it is over; it’s just a matter of time until we’re Russian subjects. I will accept that because my history has taught it is foolish to continue with a lost cause; we need to adapt instead.

I’ve already talked to my grandchildren; I don’t want them to fight; I do not want to sacrifice them when there no way they can win. Liberals have destroyed their pride in their martial heritage, and now liberals will eat a bitter fruit. If you feel the same, invest in a cabin deep in the mountains, and a supply of survival food, to be a place where they can hide until the war is over.


Tucker Carlson to interview Vladimir Putin (msn.com)
Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News anchor and right-wing media personality, has recorded an interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to the Kremlin and Carlson.

The interview, which has yet to air, would be the first interview Putin has granted to a Western journalist since he launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine nearly two years ago.

Carlson’s presentation of the interview has drawn intense criticism from independent Russian journalists who have called it a propaganda victory for the Kremlin and accused Carlson of whitewashing Putin’s crackdown on media and freedom of speech in Russia since the invasion.

In a video teasing the interview posted on X Tuesday night, Carlson said he was interviewing Putin to hear his perspective on the war, claiming that the Russian leader has been ignored by major Western media organizations. Carlson falsely claimed Western media organizations had “not bothered” to interview Putin since the start of the invasion.
"Since the day the war in Ukraine began, American media outlets have spoken to scores of people from Ukraine and they have done scores of interviews with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy. But not a single Western journalist has bothered to interview the president of the other country involved in this conflict, Vladimir Putin," Carlson said.

In reality, many major international outlets regularly make requests to interview Putin, but the Kremlin has declined to accept them since the invasion. Putin for many years has also refused to give interviews to independent Russian journalists apart from those working for state and pro-Kremlin media.

The Kremlin itself on Wednesday contradicted Carlson, saying Putin receives many interview requests from Western media but has no desire to speak with them.

“Mr. Carlson is not correct. In fact, there’s no way he could know this. We receive numerous requests for interviews with the president,” Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. But, he said, “there’s no desire to communicate with this kind of media” because of what he said was its failure to be "impartial."

Peskov said the Kremlin had chosen to speak with Carlson because his position “stands in sharp contrast” to the rest of Western media.

Carlson has long expressed positions that often align with the Kremlin's, saying before the invasion that he was "rooting for Moscow."
"By any actual reality-based measure, Vladimir Putin is not losing the war in Ukraine. He is winning the war in Ukraine and Joe Biden looks at that and says we won’t stop until you proffer an unconditional surrender,” Carlson claimed in August 2022, shortly before a Ukrainian counteroffensive liberated much of the north east Kharkiv region.

Carlson has also been a critic of the Biden administration's support for Ukraine, arguing that Putin is not a threat to the United States and suggesting the U.S. has stoked the conflict. Carlson has disparaged Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who he has called a “dictator,” “rat-like” and “sweaty.”

On Tuesday, Carlson said his team had also requested an interview with Zelenskyy.
Carlson’s positions have long attracted positive attention in Russia, with his clips aired on state media, which portrays him as a truth-teller. After he was abruptly fired from Fox last year, the state channel Russia 24 even aired a trailer for an imagined Russian show anchored by Carlson.

His arrival in Moscow has been met with breathless coverage in pro-Kremlin and state media, which has closely tracked his visit. A photo captured of Carlson at the Bolshoi ballet theater has circulated widely on Russian social media, and some news agencies even carried photos and reports of him visiting a supermarket.

One talk show compared Carlson’s visit to Jane Fonda’s anti-war trip to Vietnam in 1972. On Tuesday, the Evening Moscow newspaper carried a photo of Carlson on its front page with the headline: "Carlson, who lives in America, but speaks the truth."
In his teaser video, Carson said his interview was a defiant demonstration of "freedom of speech," alleging there was an effort to silence him and accusing Western media outlets of being "corrupt" and creating propaganda to promote Zelenskyy.
“Most Americans have no idea why Putin invaded Ukraine or what his goals are now. They’ve never heard his voice. That’s wrong,” Carlson said.

Many prominent independent Russian journalists, however, accused Carlson of acting as a propaganda mouthpiece for the Kremlin and expressed outrage at his free speech claims, given the intense crackdown by Putin’s government on independent media and dissent during the war.
“Unbelievable! I am like hundreds of Russian journalists who have had to go into exile to keep reporting about the Kremlin's war against Ukraine. The alternative was to go to jail,” Yevgenia Albats, a well-known liberal journalist and editor of The New Times, wrote on X responding to Carlson’s video. “And now [Carlson] is teaching us about good journalism,” she wrote, using an expletive about the former Fox anchor.

Since early 2022, the Kremlin has introduced draconian laws criminalizing criticism of the war. Virtually all independent media organizations have been closed or driven abroad, along with hundreds of journalists. Reporters, activists and ordinary citizens who have spoken against the war have been arrested and some given lengthy prison sentences.
Two American reporters -- Evan Gershkovich of The Wall Street Journal and Alsu Kurmasheva of Radio Free Liberty -- are currently detained by Russia on charges widely condemned as politically motivated.
Albats and others said Putin’s willingness to speak with Carlson -- but not other international news organizations or independent Russian journalists -- showed the Kremlin saw it as an opportunity to use him as a sympathetic mouthpiece to broadcast its message to millions of Americans.
The Russian media's excitement around Carlson's visit has also irritated some pro-war Russian nationalists, who see it as an embarrassing veneration of Americans.

“I am watching an amazing thing with interest: How people who ridicule Ukrainians for their subservient prostration before European politicians and public figures are meticulously recording Tucker Carlson's every move and sneeze in Moscow,” Andrei Medvedev, a Moscow City Duma deputy and former state TV presenter, wrote on his Telegram account.

[Joe Guy]

Is the left really outraged? I haven't read anything about it so I wouldn't know. I would need to see the interview before I could express an opinion on it. I expect that Carlson will somehow try to make Trump look good. Actually, I'm surprised Trump didn't go with him so he could tell Putin to stop the war with Ukraine and have it recorded it on video.

[MajGenl.Meade]

I don’t want them to fight; I do not want to sacrifice them when there no way they can win. Liberals have destroyed their pride in their martial heritage, and now liberals will eat a bitter fruit.

A normal person might well think that it's not "liberals" destroying your grandchildren's pride in any "martial heritage" but a traitorous coward whispering defeat in their ears.

I mean *ucker Carlson of course. Who did you think I meant?

[Big RR]

I agree with Joe--I haven't seen anyone, left, right, or whatever, outraged. Indeed, i wonder how many people care at all what Tucker Carlson does.

[BoSoxGal]

Two flaccid pricks in the same room, whoop whoop. WGAF? Nobody.

[Sue U]

Outraged? Hardly. Plenty of mockery, though. Carlson is just doing what he's always done as a loudspeaker for Putin's propaganda. But liberty doesn't even read (and/or doesn't understand) the articles he posts. He just saw that this one mentioned Jane Fonda and it triggered some Pavlovian response in his lizard-brain. From his own cut-n-paste:

Carlson’s positions have long attracted positive attention in Russia, with his clips aired on state media, which portrays him as a truth-teller. After he was abruptly fired from Fox last year, the state channel Russia 24 even aired a trailer for an imagined Russian show anchored by Carlson.

His arrival in Moscow has been met with breathless coverage in pro-Kremlin and state media, which has closely tracked his visit.

Why does Putin take an interview with Carlson when he refuses requests from the actual international press corps? (You could, y'know, read the copied article in the OP to find out.)

Ukraine is a test; if we lose in Ukraine, it is over; it’s just a matter of time until we’re Russian subjects. I will accept that because my history has taught it is foolish to continue with a lost cause; we need to adapt instead.

First, "we" are not fighting in Ukraine. The Ukrainians are fighting to save their own country. And it's the American Republicans in Congress (those radical leftists?) who are aiming to ensure Ukraine loses to Russia. Why do you support Trumpist Republicans who are aiding Putin if you think his goal is to subjugate the US? You're obviously happy to surrender right now. What kind of spineless traitor are you?

Second, it's been two years since Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine (ten years since he seized Crimea), and he still hasn't been able to conquer them. Ukraine's army isn't even a unified fighting force and it has virtually no air force or navy. So win or lose in Ukraine, do you really imagine Russia has the capability to even attack, let alone defeat, the US armed forces? You are either an idiot or delusional, although I'm not ruling out "both."

[MajGenl.Meade]

Question of the month, runner-up:

Why do you support Trumpist Republicans who are aiding Putin if you think his goal is to subjugate the US? You're obviously happy to surrender right now.

And the winner is:

What kind of spineless traitor are you?

[Sue U]

And the winner is:

Who says conservatives and leftists can't find common ground?

[Big RR]

[ex-khobar Andy]

There is no equation with Jane Fonda in 1972. Whatever you think of Fonda and her trip to N Vietnam, she wasn't running anything.

[liberty]

First, "we" are not fighting in Ukraine. The Ukrainians are fighting to save their own country. And it's the American Republicans in Congress (those radical leftists?) who are aiming to ensure Ukraine loses to Russia. Why do you support Trumpist Republicans who are aiding Putin if you think his goal is to subjugate the US? You're obviously happy to surrender right now. What kind of spineless traitor are you?

No, you are wrong; we are fighting a proxy war in Ukraine in the same way soviet Russians fought a proxy war in Vietnam. You remember Vietnam, don't you, the war where you fought for the Russians on the streets of America. You people were able to destroy American morale and patriotism. You encouraged young men to evade the draft and made propaganda for the communists. And when we were out of the war, you people cut off aid to South Vietnam to ensure that the communists would win, so what is different now.

[Joe Guy]

Ukraine is a test; if we lose in Ukraine, it is over; it’s just a matter of time until we’re Russian subjects.

I like piroshki so it wouldn't be all bad....(for me anyway)...

Ballots not Bombs in Vietnam!!

Give Peace a Chance!!

[MajGenl.Meade]

You encouraged young men to evade the draft and made propaganda for the communists

Thank you, Vidkun, for taking over that function.

[Big RR]

the war where you fought for the Russians on the streets of America. You people were able to destroy American morale and patriotism. You encouraged young men to evade the draft and made propaganda for the communists. And when we were out of the war, you people cut off aid to South Vietnam to ensure that the communists would win, so what is different now.

sue, you did all that> You are one powerful woman--street fighter, propagandist, and someone who could cut off aid to an ally, I am in awe.

and lib, I recall Vietnam--a war we were destined to lose from the beginning. A war we could not win because we had no plan for the peace. A war we were involved in with a proxy (the French who we supplied) for decades before we entered it directly (and, of course, we learned nothing from those days). A meat grinder into which we sent many of our young men, killing and maiming tens of thousands (including a good number of my friends)for nothing other than we didn't want to admit defeat. And a war in which we were on the side of regimes that were at least as brutal as the other side. What the hell do you remember? Yankee doodle dandy fighting for democracy? That hasn't happened since, at least, WW2. And in Vietnam we weren't fighting for anything other than not admitting we made a big mistake

[ex-khobar Andy]

Thank you, Vidkun, for taking over that function.

Seems harsh, Meade. But not wrong.

[liberty]

Ukraine is a test; if we lose in Ukraine, it is over; it’s just a matter of time until we’re Russian subjects.

I like piroshki so it wouldn't be all bad....(for me anyway)...

Ballots not Bombs in Vietnam!!

Give Peace a Chance!!

That depends on the conditions imposed on us; they will make a big difference. Taxes for example, surely, we will be subject to the Russian taxes. I can't imagine a situation where we wouldn't pay taxes. If you could get free money, wouldn't you do it? How much they demand will determine how well we will live. But it's quite possibly the Russians may allow us to divide into two countries, at last the south will be free. And we may be allowed to act as the Russians viceroys so that we will be your masters. Don't worry, we won't be too hard on you; we wouldn't rape, starve, beat you too much, bitches.

Give peace a chance in Ukraine!

[Big RR]

at last the south will be free

And Sue is the propagandist?

[liberty]

Whether you want to believe it or not, millions of Southerners would vote for independence today if they could.

Also, the Ukrainian army is now rationing ammunition. What kind of army do you call that? I call it an army destined for defeat. It is all Biden's fault; he is the commander-in-chief. He has the keys to the warehouse; he could send him anything he wanted. He doesn't do it, because he's a coward. Sue called me a coward, but whether I am or not doesn't matter because I'm not the president. Trump would never allow them to be defeated because of a lack of ammunition; Ukrainians would have the ammunition they need even if he had to face impeachment. You call Trump a coward, but it is Biden that is the coward.

[BoSoxGal]

Whether you want to believe it or not, millions of Southerners would vote for independence today if they could.

Also, the Ukrainian army is now rationing ammunition. What kind of army do you call that? I call it an army destined for defeat. It is all Biden's fault; he is the commander-in-chief. He has the keys to the warehouse; he could send him anything he wanted. He doesn't do it, because he's a coward. Sue called me a coward, but whether I am or not doesn't matter because I'm not the president. Trump would never allow them to be defeated because of a lack of ammunition; Ukrainians would have the ammunition they need even if he had to face impeachment. You call Trump a coward, but it is Biden that is the coward.

What kind of drugs are you on?

Trump is on record stating unequivocally that he would withdraw from NATO and not under any circumstances come to the aid of any European countries under attack. He would have done NOTHING to aid Ukraine after Russia’s illegal invasion, and with Trump in office Ukraine would be entirely under the yoke of Putin’s Russia long since.

[Big RR]

Whether you want to believe it or not, millions of Southerners would vote for independence today if they could.

whether they would or would not is immaterial; you said tis in a discssion of the Russians taking us over and permitting the country to split into two. You honestly believe the southern states would be freer then? And you call Sue the propagandist.

And I echo what BSG said about Trump and the Ukraine. But at one point you may be right (although in reverse)--he may well prefer to face impeachment than to supply them with any armaments.