Confirming reports and rumors that the former Fox News Channel anchor had traveled to Russia to interview President Vladimir Putin, Tucker Carlson released something of a preview on Tuesday before he conducted his interview with Russia's president in Moscow.
"It's our job," Carlson explained of why he'd undertake such an interview while acknowledging "there are risks" involved in such a project. "We're in journalism, our duty is to inform people," he reiterated.
"Most Americans have no idea why Putin invaded Ukraine, or what his goals are now," Carlson continued. "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 emphasized in the video posted from Russia's capital.
"Freedom of speech is our birthright," Carlson said, contrasting Americans' freedom with the bleak lack of individual freedoms in Russia. "We were born with the right to say what we believe, that right cannot be taken away no matter who is in the White House," he noted. "But they're trying anyway."
One hopes this emphasis on journalism and a free press means Carlson will press Putin on Russia's wrongful imprisonment of the Wall Street Journal's Evan Gershkovich who's been held in the notorious Lefortovo prison for more than 314 days.
"Almost three years ago, the Biden administration illegally spied on our text messages and then leaked their contents to their servants in the news media," Carlson reminded. "They did this in order to stop a Putin interview that we were planning. Last month, we're pretty certain they did exactly the same thing once again," he revealed. "But this time we came to Moscow anyway."
Speaking to the effects of Putin's invasion of Ukraine, Carlson said that the "post-World War II economic order, the system that guaranteed prosperity in the West for more than 80 years, is coming apart very fast - and along with it the dominance of the U.S. dollar."
Calling such impacts, along with the human lives claimed in the fighting, "history-altering developments" that "will define the lives of our grandchildren," Carlson lamented that many Americans are not adequately informed on the conflict between Russia and Ukraine and "think that nothing has really changed" as a result of the war.
Why I'm interviewing Vladimir Putin. pic.twitter.com/hqvXUZqvHX
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) February 6, 2024
Carlson torched "corrupt" media outlets that "lie to their readers and viewers...mostly by omission" for the lack of American notice of the way things are shifting while the war drags on. He also criticized the way media outlets in the U.S. have been "promoting a foreign leader [Ukrainian President Zelensky] like he's a new consumer brand" while "not a single Western journalist has bothered to interview the president of the other country involved in this conflict: Vladimir Putin."
Noting that he has also requested an interview with Zelensky that the Ukrainian leader has yet to accept, Carlson called uncritical reporting on Ukraine "not journalism" but "government propaganda of the ugliest kind."
"We are not here because we love Vladimir Putin," Carlson emphasized. "We are here because we love the United States - and we want it to remain prosperous and free. We paid for this trip ourselves," he clarified. "We took no money from any government or group nor are we charging people to see the interview" once it's posted. Carlson said his Putin interview would be "shot live to tape" and be posted "unedited on our website."
In addition, Carlson praised Elon Musk for promising "not to suppress or block this interview once we post it on his platform, X, and we're grateful for that."
"Western governments, by contrast, will certainly do their best to censor this video on other, less-principled platforms, because that's what they do," Carlson predicted. "They are afraid of information they can't control. But you have no reason to be afraid of it."
"We are not encouraging you to agree with what Putin may say in this interview, but we are urging you to watch it," Carlson reiterated. "You should know as much as you can. And then, like a free citizen and not a slave, you can decide for yourself."