Tucker Carlson Shares Controversial Two-Hour Vladimir Putin Interview
09.02.2024 - 13:42
/ variety.com
J. Kim Murphy Tucker Carlson has shared his longform interview with Russia’s president Vladimir Putin, discussing the political leader’s justifications for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The video, running more than two hours, represents the first time that the Russian leader has been interviewed by a Western journalist since the conflict started nearly two years ago.
“The interview, as you will see if you watch it, is primarily about the war in progress, the war in Ukraine — how it started, what’s happening and, most pressingly, how it might end,” Carlson said at the start of the video, speaking to the camera while standing in front of the Kremlin. “At the beginning of the interview, we asked the most obvious question, which is ‘Why did you do this? Did you feel a threat, an imminent physical threat, and that’s your justification?’ The answer we got shocked us. Putin went on for a very long time, probably half an hour, about the history of Russia going back to the eighth century.
And honestly, we thought this was a filibustering technique and found it annoying and interrupted him several times.” “But we concluded in the end, for what it’s worth, that it was not a filibustering technique. There was no time limit on the interview. We ended it after two hours.
Instead what you’re about to see seemed, to us, sincere, whether you agree with it or not,” Carlson continued. “Vladimir Putin believes that Russia has a historic claim to parts of western Ukraine. So our opinion would be to view, in that light, as a sincere expression of what he thinks.” Carlson announced the interview on Tuesday, the same day that the interview took place at the Kremlin in Moscow.