Tucker Carlson just gave Vladimir Putin exactly what he wanted

Russian President Vladimir Putin had not been interviewed by an American journalist in almost three years, but this week he granted an interview to former Fox News host Tucker Carlson. That means, of course, that Putin still hasn’t been interviewed by an American journalist in three years. He was interviewed by a former Fox News entertainer. The questions we should be asking are, why did Putin give an interview to Carlson — and why did he choose to do so now?

To be clear, my issue isn’t that an American interviewed Putin. That’s what real journalists should do. But, to repeat, Carlson isn’t a real journalist. Fox News, which fired him in April, made that clear when it successfully defended Carlson against a slander accusation filed against him in 2019. In writing her opinion, U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil restated Fox’s defense: “The “‘general tenor’ of the show should then inform a viewer that he [Carlson] is not ‘stating actual facts’ about the topics he discusses and is instead engaging in ‘exaggeration’ and ‘non-literal commentary.’ “