Tucker Carlson accused the US government of banning interviews with Putin

Tucker Carlson

Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson told Swiss publication Die Weltwoche that the US government thwarted his plans to interview Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“You know, I tried to interview Vladimir Putin, and the American government stopped me,” Carlson said, without specifying when exactly he wanted to interview the Russian president.

However, he noted that US authorities have for decades made “very aggressive attempts to control” what is available in American media. He cited the example of the conflict in Ukraine  - "a potentially nuclear conflict between superpowers" - where Americans are prohibited from learning "everything they can" about it.

The fact that Tucker Carlson asked for an interview with Putin was announced at the end of August by Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of the Rossiya Segodnya media group and RT television channel. “He (Carlson -), by the way, really asks for an interview with Vladimir Putin. If suddenly someone heard and reported it to the president, it would be great,” she said then.

Tucker Carlson has hosted Tucker Carlson Tonight on Fox News since 2016. The show was one of the most popular on American television and outperformed its counterparts on CNN and MSNBC in ratings. However, in April, Fox News announced that the host would leave the channel in agreement with management.

This comes after Fox entered into a settlement with voting software and equipment supplier Dominion Voting Systems in a defamation lawsuit. In accordance with it, the TV channel must pay the plaintiff $787.5 million.

Dominion sued Fox over statements made on air by the lawyers of former US President Donald Trump, CNBC reported. They accused the company of rigging the results of the presidential election, which Trump lost. Carlson was interrogated in this case as a witness. After leaving Fox News, the journalist began hosting his own show on the social network “X” (formerly Twitter).

Read PIONERPRODUKT .by Depopulation in RUSSIA will hit the housing market. What will happen in 10 years Bad scenario: can a strike in Hollywood ruin Disney There are no conflicts and everyone is a genius: nine myths about top teams Strategy in conditions of uncertainty: current challenges and tools

Putin has repeatedly given interviews to American journalists. The last time this happened was in October 2021: then the Russian president answered questions from the host of the American CNBC television channel Hadley Gamble. The interview, taken after a meeting of the Russian Energy Week forum, began with a question about a successor.

"What do you think about your successor, do you really want to be president until you're 84 [years old]?" Gamble asked. “No, I prefer not to answer such questions, this is my traditional answer. There is still quite a lot of time before the next elections. Discussions on this topic will destabilize the situation,” Putin said.

He also answered questions from the journalist about the situation in the Middle East, oil exports , the DOLLAR, the union of Australia, the usa and Great Britain(AUKUS) and opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who has been in prison since February 2021.