WASHINGTON.- One of the memes that circulated on social networks after the interview of Tucker Carlson con Vladimir Putin In the Kremlin he showed a photo of both with a line of dialogue invented for each one. “Mr. Putin, why did you invade Ukraine?” Carlson reads below. “Four million years ago, the Earth was in its cooling phase,” Putin responds.
That invented and sarcastic back and forth touches on the first question of the two hour interview from Carlson to Putin in the Kremlin. Putin responds to Carlson’s first question with a nearly half-hour history lesson, in which he implies that, in his opinion, Russia has the right to annex Ukrainian territory. Carlson tries to interrupt him, but Putin ignores him and continues. And he repeats his story: “Ukraine is an artificial state that was formed at the will of Stalin.”
Sharp jokes were one of the reactions that the interview garnered, and the target was not only Putin, but also Carlson himself. The controversial commentator, revered by the extreme right and repudiated to the maximum by progressivism, enjoyed a remarkable level of access – the talk lasted two hours – to Putin, who has refused to grant interviews to Western journalists. Carlson was the first American to sit down for an interview with Putin since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. And, as many expected, far from challenging or making him uncomfortable, Carlson provided a platform for Putin to unfold his story and expand on without accountability about war crimes committed in Ukraine, the illegal invasion of a sovereign country, the lack of freedoms and human rights in Russia, or the repression of political rivals.
Putin did use the interview with Carlson to send several messages to the West, and, in particular, to the United States. He ruled out invading Lithuania, Poland or any other NATO country, indicating that this possibility “is absolutely out of the question.” He left the door open to an agreement with the West, and made it clear that there are active channels, but he again demanded that the United States stop sending weapons to Ukraine. Putin called for reaching an “agreement” for Russia to keep part of Ukraine. And he also said that an agreement can be reached to release the newspaper journalist The Wall Street Journal, Evan Gershkovich, whom Putin falsely accused of being a spy. “The special services are in contact. They are talking… I think an agreement can be reached,” he stated.
That statement by Putin about Gershkovich provoked a response from the Journal, which was encouraged by the possibility of an eventual release of its correspondent in Moscow. “Evan is a journalist, and journalism is not a crime. Any contrary portrait is total fiction. “Evan was wrongfully arrested and has been wrongfully detained by Russia for almost a year for doing his job, and we continue to demand his immediate release,” the newspaper said.
During the interview, the most awkward moment was when Putin reminded Carlson that he He tried to join the CIA in his youth and failed, a fact that was not known. As they would say in Argentina, a “big folder.” “Maybe we should thank God they didn’t let you in,” the Russian president told him, before the journalist’s impassive gaze.
The interview had more than 130 million views on the social network X, formerly called Twitter, this afternoon and its content generated headlines on North American media portals. But Carlson’s highly anticipated talk with Putin ended up overshadowed by Biden’s speech at the White House in which the president responded to questions about his mental acuity contained in a Justice Department report. Biden’s reaction was the biggest story of the prime time in United States, and dominated the media coverage this Friday, and ended up relegating Carlson’s interview, who months ago traveled to Argentina to interview Javier Miley.
In the end, the interview seemed to garner more reactions about Carlson than about Putin, who offered answers and definitions that left little new. But the remarkable access that Carlson enjoyed and the way in which he conducted the interview did generate several reactions.
“Putin, in a incoherent interviewbarely lets Tucker Carlson say a word,” was the title of the Washington Post about the talk. “By the end of the conversation, it was clear that Putin had no intention of ending his brutal war against Ukraine. But Carlson, who was fired from Fox last year, seemed ready to give up,” was one of the sentences in that summary. The AP news agency said that Putin “used the interview with Tucker Carlson” to insist with his story about Ukraine. “For more than two hours, Putin, largely unchallenged, showered Carlson with Russian history and Kremlin digs,” the agency chronicled.
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