Tucker Carlson's Putin Interview Goes Viral, MSM Furious

Carlson gives Putin 2 hours uninterrupted; Putin reveals Clinton rebuffed Russia's NATO bid

On February 8, 2024, journalist Tucker Carlson, published a two-hour interview with Vladimir Putin, which happened on February 6, 2024. That video, which debuted on X.com has garnered over 200 million views, and on YouTube.com, has over 18 million views -- far surpassing his viewership over at Fox where he was fired. Carlson asked 43 questions during the interview. And while 15 of them could be seen as softballs, he did seem to lose control over the interview, at times. We have seen prior interviews of Putin over the last many years by the likes of Megyn Kelly, George Stephanopoulos, and dozens of other Western “so-called-journalists”, yet this one seemed to strike the ire from mainstream media (MSM) as Carlson gave Putin 2 hours of uninterrupted time, there were no Big Pharma or injury attorney ads to interrupt or influence the questions being asked. Over 90 news interviews have been done with Putin over the last 10 years; so it's not like this was anything new. And when you watch the other ones, it's just spinning and pontificating and nothing gets accomplished. Putin doesn't answer hard questions. 

If you came into the interview expecting to see some crazy madman as the CIA-trained MSM portrays Putin, you left that interview, thinking he’s got a strong grasp of history and a strong knowledge of a wide range of global issues, Putin is leading his nation which has a deeply historical context, going back to 300 A.D., of which he has a pretty deep grasp. And it seems that his decisions are rooted in a multi-1000-year history. I didn't know that. And that was an interesting takeaway. So while the first 20-30 minutes was a boring history lesson from the mind of Putin, it made it harder for me to leave that interview thinking that he was a crazy person. It's more like he's a bit of a methodical thinker. The second thought I came away from the interview was much more tactical, and we learned more about this supposed meeting with Bill Clinton. He stated in the interview that he asked Bill Clinton, can we [Russia] join NATO? And Bill Clinton said to him, yes, and let's go hash out the details over dinner. And then that night, they have dinner, and Clinton says my team says no. And to me, when I looked at the heart of that interview, that was one of these unique moments. The idea that he would have made it intriguing to Clinton to say, “Can we join NATO?” And then to be told yes, and then be rebuffed? 

In some ways, joining NATO would have been akin to dismantling and saying we do we still need this. In Russia, the question is, what would have happened? Have they said yes, and Clinton took a different path?  Yet, Bill Clinton, in his own words, set things in motion for an expanded NATO that was confrontational to Russia. It is a very important context that is not understood in our modern times, especially with the disinformation coming out of Ukraine. I wouldn't dismiss it. That said, Putin is not somebody who would say something like that in an uncalculated way, only to pull back that does not seem and I know but that is not who he is. So just in that context, Putin is a very measured person. And when Clinton’s team said “no”, and of course the team would say no, because that was the point of having NATO in the first place, as a defense against Russia/Soviet Union. It doesn't make sense for Russia to join NATO.

What we heard in that interview, once you got past the ancient history lecture, is that Putin when he first came to power, sought cordial relations with the US and with American presidents, and he was rebuffed. His attempt to join NATO was rebuffed. More generally, the US reneged on his promise to Gorbachev not to expand NATO one inch eastward. And instead, we began multiple waves of NATO expansion. And I think it's very important to understand. We knew that voting to expand NATO would have tragic long-term consequences. So think about it, every time we decided to add another country, it was a vote to expand the military-industrial-complex. We had warned us not to go down this path, and we did it anyway. So then in 2008 when, then Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, called a meeting on the potential for NATO expansion to Ukraine specifically, met a red line from the entire Russian elite, not just Putin. In other words, the idea of bringing Ukraine into NATO was an idea that was rejected not just by hardliners, but even by liberal reformers. So I think what you hear in the Carlson interview, are a lot of points about how he sought good relations with the West. But what was our reaction to him? Pressure, sanctions, etc., We tried to expand NATO into his backyard on his most vulnerable border. And then finally, we supported these hardline ultra-nationalist neo-Nazi elements in Ukraine. Now, whether or not you believe everything that Putin said, the interview, and his actions have been that of a rational actor, not a madman. This is somebody who we could have negotiated with. And in fact, there was still an opportunity before this Ukraine war, to prevent the war by taking NATO expansion off the table. We refused and continue to refuse to do that, there was a new press story, that in the wake of this interview with the Biden ministration, still rejected entering negotiations with Russia, even though Putin held out that olive branch in that interview. So you know, again, this is very sad how we have conducted American-Russia relations over the last 25 years we turned what could have been an ally into an enemy at a tremendous cost to our treasury and innumerable lives lost in Ukraine and Russia. This has been the most fateful year of American policy in the last 30 years.