Tucker Carlson’s words are now being aired on Russian state media. It’s not hard to see why, as Philip Bump notes, the Russian media would like the following words Carlson offered during an Aug. 29 broadcast on Fox News:
Worth noting: No one in the world is more invested in the idea that Russia is winning in Ukraine than the Russian president, hence the alacrity with which television stations loyal to his regime touted Carlson’s assessment.
As Philip notes, Carlson has been cited regularly on Russian television since the invasion of Ukraine in February. Carlson’s views of the war have consistently been favorable to Russia — not surprising, given that in 2019 he explicitly stated that he preferred Russia win in its conflict with Ukraine, which at the time was more limited. And that’s made him useful to the Putinites.
This time, though, Carlson’s assessment aged particularly poorly.
Read more on the Carlson-Russia connection here.
That clip, translated into Russian, was played by the host of Channel One Russia after introducing Carlson to an assembled panel. Then, Russia-1 TV, aired a similar presentation.“Joe Biden is calling for an unconditional surrender from Vladimir Putin,” he said. “Here’s the weird thing. By any actual reality-based measure, Vladimir Putin is not losing the war in Ukraine. He is winning the war in Ukraine and Joe Biden looks at that and says we won’t stop until you proffer an unconditional surrender.”
Worth noting: No one in the world is more invested in the idea that Russia is winning in Ukraine than the Russian president, hence the alacrity with which television stations loyal to his regime touted Carlson’s assessment.
As Philip notes, Carlson has been cited regularly on Russian television since the invasion of Ukraine in February. Carlson’s views of the war have consistently been favorable to Russia — not surprising, given that in 2019 he explicitly stated that he preferred Russia win in its conflict with Ukraine, which at the time was more limited. And that’s made him useful to the Putinites.
This time, though, Carlson’s assessment aged particularly poorly.
Then again, it’s not solely that Carlson praises Russia because it is easily contrasted with Biden. He’s obviously enamored of authoritarians in the same way Trump was, in recent months visiting Hungary and Brazil to hype the leaders of those countries.In the days since he scoffed at the idea that Russia was doing anything other than winning, Ukraine has swept into Russian-held parts of the country and pushed Russia back toward its own border. …
There’s an obvious question that arises here: why, exactly, is Carlson so eager to present Putin as obviously winning? In part, it seems, it’s because of the bubble from which he broadcasts. As the New York Times reported earlier this year, Carlson’s show is increasingly the domain only of like-minded allies. ...
But it’s mostly because Carlson’s point wasn’t about Russia. It was about President Biden...
Carlson’s untempered praise for the Russian war effort wasn’t simply a naive assessment of the war’s progress. It was an enemy-of-my-enemy play. The Fox News host has invested an enormous amount of energy since Biden’s inauguration in presenting the administration as a dire threat to the political right and to Americans more broadly. So when Biden says that maybe the war isn’t going as Russia expected, this is about clearing the way for Chinese global dominance, apparently. Despite China having already aligned with the Carlson-Putin side in the conflict.
Read more on the Carlson-Russia connection here.