How Mainstream Media's Meltdown Missed the Point of Tucker Carlson's Putin Interview
How Mainstream Media's Meltdown Missed the Point of Tucker Carlson's Putin Interview
The mainstream media went into meltdown mode after learning that Tucker Carlson had gone to Moscow to interview Russian President Vladimir Putin, as described by Honest Media at the time. We have since followed the response and reaction to the conversation, which has not been better.
In fact, the legacy media barely analyzed, and still have largely neglected to mention, the video that Carlson released before the interview in which he explained his reasons for conducting it and why his audience should care. The coverage of the interview also stubbornly centered on outrage that it had happened at all, rather than analyzing most of its content.
Carlson said that he wanted to hear not only Putin’s rationale for the war in Ukraine, but his views on its economic consequences, and particularly the ways that Western sanctions on Russia would impact the U.S. dollar’s status as a world reserve currency. While legacy media whipped up hysteria and questioned Carlson’s patriotism, it ignored the most significant aspect of the conversation, which is how the conflict might realign the world economic order and topple the dollar’s hegemony. That topic should concern every American.
Despite the media’s predictions, Carlson did not conduct a softball interview. He asked the Russian president tough questions; at times he interrupted to ask Putin for clarification or to challenge him. Most notably, Carlson and Putin engaged in a testy exchange over the fate of fellow American journalist Evan Gershkovich of the Wall Street Journal, who has been detained in Moscow on espionage charges since March 2023. Carlson told Putin that the charges were not credible and that Gershkovich should not be used as a political pawn in Russia’s larger conflict with the United States and NATO.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, much of the mainstream media continued to hype its hysteria even after the interview concluded. CNN lamented that “Putin walks away with a propaganda victory after Tucker Carlson’s softball interview,” while The Guardian declared, “Tucker Carlson’s Putin interview wasn’t journalism. It was sycophancy.” The New Yorker apparently didn’t think it could discredit the interview on its substance, so instead it posted the snide headline, “Tucker Carlson Promised an Unedited Putin. The Result Was Boring.” Tatiana Stanovaya offered a more sensible analysis for the Carnegie Endowment titled “Why Putin’s Interview With Tucker Carlson Didn’t Go to Plan,” which actually analyzed its content. (Having been born in Moscow, Sanovaya could approach the topic with a more clear headed outlook.)
Meanwhile, Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. signaled his support for Carlson, posting on X that the interview represented a journalist “doing his job,” and that “Americans can handle thought-provoking conversations.” Cutting through the legacy media’s fear-mongering and name-calling, Kennedy wrote, “Let us decide for ourselves” what to think about this war and whether to support all the money that the US government is sending to continue it.
Kennedy also used the occasion to issue his own explainer video about the war, which differs sharply from the establishment narrative, but calls for the ending of hostilities through a negotiated settlement.
At the same time, President Joe Biden claimed – whether coincidentally or not – that the hesitancy of Americans to unequivocally support Ukraine is somehow criminal. Biden’s intolerance for mere questioning and open dialogue reinforces Carlson’s position that Americans would do well to weigh different points of view and ask whether a war entering its third year with no end in sight is the best way to spend taxpayer money and global goodwill. But instead, the president insinuated that dissenting opinions are a potential violation of the law.
Meanwhile, former President Donald J. Trump Jr. took a hands-off approach to the controversy, but one that demonstrated his lack of understanding of, or support for, the NATO alliance, as reported by the Washington Post.
In summary, Putin raised two questions that should concern every American. One is to what extent do American presidents really direct foreign policy. Putin indicated that after meeting with several former U.S. presidents and reaching an agreement on sundry issues, he later learned that the intelligence operatives vetoed what had been decided by the two heads of state. Putin shared these stories before pivoting to the destruction in September 2022 of the critical Nord Stream gas pipeline that connects Russia to Germany in which he, a former intelligence officer, and others in America and elsewhere, discerned the fingerprints of the CIA, as analyzed by France 24.
The interview raised uncomfortable but necessary questions about America’s Big Government, which is why the legacy media reacted as vociferously as it did. Ironically, many of Carlson’s most vicious critics were his professional journalist colleagues, which points to their degradation as a trustworthy source of information.
Indeed, it is Carlson’s responsibility as a journalist to bring people like Putin before the American public. Has legacy media already forgotten that Barbara Walters interviewed Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, and Vladimir Putin? What about Larry King interviewing Muammar Gaddafi in 2009 and Peter Arnett interviewing Osama Bin Laden in 1997? In its rush to discredit Carlson without regard for the substance of his interview, America’s mainstream media reveals just how consumed it has become with buttressing and rationalizing the nation’s existing power structure – and neither interrogating nor holding it accountable to the people.