(TargetDailyNews.com) – Former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson sat down for a February 6th interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and the reaction from mainstream media has been predictably intense.
Carlson spoke with Putin for more than two hours, posting the video on his X (Twitter) account where it got more than 140 million views. This is far higher than any number of viewers Carlson, or any other mainstream media host, has ever received on network or cable television.
Putin spent more than a half-hour discussing Russian history going back hundreds of years to set the stage for discussing the war in Ukraine. The Russian leader said he believes Ukraine has always been part of Russia, and that the country now is “obviously a satellite state of the U.S.”
He told Carlson that if the U.S. wants the war between the two countries to stop, then it needs to stop sending military supplies and financial aid to Ukraine. “We’re willing to negotiate,” Putin said.
Mainstream media reaction—and that of many politicians—has been tilted heavily toward the negative, with most outlets claiming Carlson was giving a dangerous dictator air time that he should not. For example, MSNBC made its opinion clear in the headline “Tucker Carlson just gave Vladimir Putin exactly what he wanted,” noting that Putin is a former KGB official skilled at manipulation.
Directly after the interview aired, news sites lit up with another claim: That the European Union was considering putting some kind of sanctions on Carlson such as a travel ban in Europe. The reaction to the interview has been so extreme and incendiary that it is difficult to sort truth from fact. Just a few days later, the EU denied that it was considering sanctioning Carlson.
The claim was put forward originally by Newsweek magazine, which quoted a member of the European Parliament who asked member nations to consider sanctioning Carlson, calling him a “mouthpiece” for the Russian leader.
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