Last month, The New York Times described an Iowa Christian presidential forum hosted by a “conservative evangelical kingmaker,” which featured Tucker Carlson interviewing six GOP candidates, as “Jesus is out. Vladimir V. Putin is in.”
The lineup of six GOP presidential candidates featured Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Asa Hutchinson, Mike Pence, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Tim Scott.
“In the hands of Mr. Carlson, the former Fox News host who was recently fired, Ukraine became the bad actor in the conflict, not Russia,” The Times reported.
When former Trump Vice President Mike Pence tried to blame President Joe Biden for Ukraine allegedly not having enough tanks, Carlson “interjected, to the delight of much of the audience.”
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“Wait, I know you’re running for president, but you are distressed that Ukrainians don’t have enough American tanks?” Carlson asked.
“For good measure,” The Times added, “Mr. Carlson called Ukraine an American ‘client state,’ accused Ukraine’s Jewish leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, of persecuting Christians and strongly indicated Mr. Pence had been conned, despite evidence to the contrary.”
Donald Trump did not attend that Family Leadership presidential candidate conference in Iowa.
And on Wednesday the ex-president once again will avoid a GOP presidential candidate event, skipping the first Republican 2024 presidential debate and instead enjoy an interview with Tucker Carlson, which NBC News reports has already been recorded. The Trump-Tucker interview is expected to “air” during the debate via X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
Trump’s admiration for Putin is legendary, as is Carlson’s.
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During his Fox News days Carlson, according to USA Today, “had a soft spot for Russia, a country Carlson often mentioned during his broadcasts and on which he expressed a variety of opinions. These opinions often ended up being used for propaganda purposes by Russian state media, which may account for why the anchor appeared to receive job offers from state-run Russian news channels in the wake of his ouster. He also received praise from Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.”
In fact, Carlson’s admiration for strongmen in general is well-known, especially after he broadcast his Fox News show from Hungary in 2021, praising Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who has been widely regarded as a pro-Putin and pro-Trump right-wing Christian nationalist authoritarian.
“In interviews with Hungary’s president Victor Orbán, El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele, Poland’s president Andrzej Duda, and most recently, Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro, Carlson has pitched softball questions, praised anti-democratic ideas, and allowed lies about some of the regimes to go unchallenged,” Media Matters reported last August. “Carlson has also repeatedly praised Russian President Vladimir Putin, excusing his regime’s aggression in Ukraine.”
On Sunday, Tucker Carlson, once again in Hungary, again appeared to support what experts call Russia’s illegal war on Ukraine, posting video of himself meeting “the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, at the Serbian Embassy in Budapest.”
Just as he did in Iowa last month, on Sunday Carlson made clear he does not see Russia as the villain in its war against Ukraine, which he calls “the NATO war against Russia.”
“So we’re in the car going to the Serbian embassy to meet with the President of Serbia who is in town,” Carlson says from Hungary in his video.
“Serbia has the distinction of being one of the countries in the region that’s been bombed by NATO,” Carlson says. “So I think he’s got an interesting perspective on what’s happening in Ukraine, the NATO war against Russia.”
Later in the video Carlson again says, “the war in Ukraine, the war against Russia led by NATO.”
Former Republican U.S. Congressman Joe Walsh responded to Carlson’s video, calling him a “traitor.”
“I’ll save you the time, so you don’t have to watch this: Tucker blames America & NATO for the war and defends Russia. Once again. Tucker Carlson shows he is a traitor to this country. Once again.”
So did another former U.S. Congressman, Republican Adam Kinzinger: “Tucker is a traitor to the US.”
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