Russian President Vladimir Putin has claimed he “did not get full satisfaction” from his interview with Tucker Carlson as the fired Fox News host failed to challenge him.
The 71-year-old Putin appeared on Russian state television on Wednesday and spoke with propagandist Pavel Zarubin.
“Honestly, I thought he would be more aggressive and ask tough questions,” the autocrat said of the 54-year-old Carlson.
“And I wasn’t just ready for that, I wanted it, because it would have given me the opportunity to respond sharply and in kind, which I think would have added some specificity to our conversation. But he chose a different tactic.’
Putin then went on to describe Carlson’s inaction.
Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared on Russian state television on Wednesday and claimed he “did not get full satisfaction” from his interview with Tucker Carlson
The autocrat sat down with the former Fox News personality for a conversation lasting more than two hours, during which he delivered a monologue about Russian history and blamed Ukraine for starting the war.
Putin told Russian propogandist Pavel Zarubin that he had expected Carlson to be “more aggressive” and “ask difficult questions”
“He tried to interrupt me several times, but still, surprisingly for a Western journalist, he proved patient and listened to my long answers, especially about history,” he said.
“And he gave me no reason to do what I was prepared to do. To be honest, I didn’t get the full satisfaction from that interview.’
During the more than two-hour conversation with the conservative pundit, Putin performed a monologue on Russian history and expressed his grievances with past and current American leaders.
“Are we having a talk show or a conversation?” the president snapped shortly after the interview began.
The arrangement marked his first interview with an American journalist since before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine nearly two years ago.
According to the Kremlin, Putin agreed to sit down with Carlson because his position on the Russian-Ukrainian war differed from the “one-sided” reporting by many Western media.
The Russian leader used the time to speak at length about the conflict, blaming Ukraine for starting it — a claim Carlson did not dispute.
“We protected our people, ourselves, our homeland and our future,” Putin said in justifying the February 2022 invasion – the biggest attack on a European country since World War II.
Carlson was unchallenged when it came to Putin’s claims about the Russian-Ukrainian war
“He turned out to be patient and listened to my long answers, especially about history,” Putin said of the conservative expert during his TV appearance.
He also placed some blame on the United States for the ongoing war.
‘If you really want to stop fighting, you have to stop supplying weapons. It will be over in a few weeks. That’s it,’ he said.
He further claimed that Russia had failed to achieve its war objectives “because one of them is de-Nazification.”
The term is widely regarded as code for the removal of Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the country’s first Jewish president.
Putin refused to answer when Carlson asked whether he would be “satisfied” with the territory Russia now has.
After a long history lesson in which he tried to prove that Ukraine had always been part of Russia, the autocrat unleashed his scathing criticism of the US, claiming that generations of presidents had failed to reach consensus on security issues.
He said he had had a “personal relationship” with Donald Trump and George W. Bush and claimed he did not remember the last time he spoke to President Biden.
‘Do I have to remember everything?’ said Putin. ‘I have my own things to do. We have domestic political affairs.”
When asked why he had not spoken to Biden, Putin said: ‘Why would I call him? What should I talk to him about? Or beg him for what?’
He clarified that “certain contacts are being maintained” between the two countries.
The Russian president characterized Carlson as passive, saying he “gave me no reason to do what I was prepared for.”
During the interview, Putin urged the US to stop supplying weapons to Ukraine, a position echoed by Carlson and amplified by the Kremlin’s propaganda channels.
The interview was his first with an American journalist since before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine nearly two years ago
Carlson has historically been soft on Russia, even speaking in support of the country. His attacks on the Biden administration’s aid to Ukraine have been regularly rebroadcast through Kremlin propaganda channels.
Appearing at the World Governments Summit this week, Carlson said he had been trying to land an interview with the Russian leader for three years.
“I wanted to interview Putin because he is the leader of a country with which the US government is more or less at war,” the TV personality explained.
He further alleged that the government “stopped (him) from doing this by spying on (his) text messages and leaking them to the New York Times.”
This seemed to refer to the messages that started a series of events that ultimately led to his dismissal from Fox News.
Although they were redacted in legal documents and published in full by the newspaper, they had no apparent connection to his interview with Putin.
“My country’s intelligence services were illegally working against me,” Carlson insisted.
He made similar baseless claims in 2021, when he claimed the National Security Agency was planning to leak his communications in an attempt to take him off the air.