Former American Fox News TV channel host Tucker Carlson arrived in Russia for the first time. writes Mash. According to the telegram channel, he has been in Moscow since February 1.
Mash reports that Carlson was flying to Moscow via Istanbul, where he was spotted on February 1 while boarding a Turkish Airlines flight. “Unfortunately, the flight was delayed by two hours, but at 16:10 Tucker arrived safely in the capital’s Vnukovo,” the publication says.
As Mash notes, Carlson “enjoys the decorous life of the capital,” in particular, on February 3 he was noticed at the Bolshoi Theater at the ballet “Spartacus.” At the same time, the journalist himself did not report about his visit to Moscow – the official reasons for his arrival are unknown.
Carlson’s colleague Jackson Hinkle, commenting on his arrival in Russia, wrote on the social network X: “Please, God, let this be an interview with [президентом России Владимиром] Putin.”
Tucker Carlson hosted Fox News Tonight and Tucker Carlson Tonight on Fox News Channel. In 2020, following the US presidential election, Carlson questioned the results of the vote count and suggested that voting machines produced by the Dominion Voting System may have deliberately distorted the data. The company stated that the presenter’s words were slander and filed a lawsuit for $787.5 million.
In 2023, Fox News settled the dispute with Dominion Voting Systems out of court; a few days after this, it became known that Carlson was leaving the channel. Soon the journalist launched a personal project in the interview format.
That Carlson wants to interview Vladimir Putin, in August 2023 spoke RT TV channel editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan. According to her, “it would be great” if “someone heard and conveyed” the American journalist’s request to the Russian leader.
In September 2023, Carlson in a conversation with the Swiss publication Die Weltwoche statedthat the American government prohibited him from interviewing Putin. Among other things, the journalist accused the US authorities of “aggressive attempts” to control the media.
US State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller claimedthat the American authorities are not connected with the ban announced by Carlson.
Presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov, in turn, said, that such interviews now “make no sense,” including due to the fact that the public, in his words, is “seriously intoxicated by such Russian-hating propaganda.” “It’s unlikely that anyone is now able to soberly perceive Putin’s analysis of the situation, his vision of the future, and so on,” the Kremlin spokesman said.
At the same time, Peskov noted that the Kremlin daily receives “dozens of requests from international media, including American ones, asking President Putin to give an interview,” and “there will definitely come a time when such an interview is required.”