The Fox network and the Republican Party stood in solidarity with Russia and President Vladimir Putin but that has evolved over the weekend.
Fox host Tucker Carlson has been begging Putin for an interview for weeks and the Russian state television networks have been running Carlson’s monologues on their media with subtitles.
It was just four days ago that Carlson asked why it was unpatriotic to support Putin.
“It may be worth asking yourself, since it is getting pretty serious, what is this really about? Why do I hate Putin so much?” he said Tuesday. “Has Putin ever called me a racist? Has he threatened to get me fired for disagreeing with him? These are fair questions, and the answer to all of them is ‘no.’ Vladimir Putin didn’t do any of that. So, why does permanent Washington hate him so much?”
Carlson even went so far as to claim that Democrats would charge you with treason if you didn’t hate Putin. According to the GOP and Fox, the fight with Ukraine is nothing more than a “border dispute.”
Speaking to Laura Ingraham on Wednesday evening, former President Donald Trump explained that Putin’s fight is what the United States should be doing on the U.S./Mexico border.
According to Ingraham and Trump, the weakness of the U.S. and NATO is the reason that Putin felt he could invade Ukraine.
“He was going to be satisfied with a peace,” Trump claimed. “And now he sees the weakness and the incompetence and the stupidity of this administration, and, as an American, I’m angry about it, and I’m saddened by it. And it all happened because of a rigged election. This would have never happened.”
While many conservatives have bought into that narrative, the reality is that Putin has explained he wants to reestablish the Soviet Union. That goal would not depend on who was the president of the United States. The war from Putin has nothing to do with the United States, nor is the U.S. exclusively attacking Russia. As former Secretary Condi Rice explained, the global community would not be unified behind Trump the way they are with President Joe Biden.
On Sunday, Fox featured Judith Miller, the reporter who got facts wrong about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. She cited another moment on Fox in which it was suggested “someone” should “go Julius Caesar on Putin.” Meaning, someone should assassinate the leader.
Fox appears to be turning in their support of Russia. It may have come from intervention by the station’s owners, the Murdoch family, or Republican leaders.
Carlson’s show doesn’t air on the weekends, so it will be interesting to see if Carlson is continuing to fight to interview Putin.
See the video of Miller below: