Comrade Carlson goes to Moscow

Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News spinmeister, just paid a visit to Moscow, where he was closely followed around town by an admiring state media before topping off his trip with a cordial, two-hour interview with Russia’s dictator, Vladimir Putin.

To earn his place as one of the Kremlin’s favorite stooges, Carlson has made himself an enthusiastic human spigot for Russian propaganda justifying the invasion of Ukraine. At the time of Russia’s initial attack, Carlson challenged his Fox viewers to come up with any good reason for Americans to hate Putin. “What has Putin ever done to me?” Carlson wanted to know — a question akin to someone in the 1930s saying, “I’m not a Jew, so why should I hate Hitler?”

The interview allows Putin to communicate directly to an American audience — in particular America First conservatives who are dubious about the need to defend Ukraine, as well as broader U.S. geopolitical interests, by responding forcefully to Russian aggression. In his chat with Carlson, Putin delved deeply into a Russia-centric version of history to justify the brutal seizure of Ukrainian territory and made a pitch for ending the war through negotiation. The Kremlin kleptocrat said all the United States needs to do is let Russia keep the land already stolen and open the way for a Russia-friendly regime in Kyiv. In other words, the price of peace is betrayal of the people of Ukraine who are fighting to escape a grim history and become part of the free West.

Putin’s scheme will get a sympathetic reception from a majority of congressional Republicans. They have already successfully subverted the cause of democracy by using military aid to Ukraine as a bargaining chip to get Democrats to sign on to a tough immigration bill. This week, they announced they did not want the bill after all, because it would take away from the GOP and former President Donald Trump a key point of attack in the 2024 campaign. Aid to Ukraine thereby became a collateral casualty in the Republicans’ brazen political game.

If Russia’s other favorite stooge, Trump, is returned to the White House, there can be little doubt that the shameful, treacherous path laid out by Putin in his interview with Carlson will be eagerly followed by a second Trump administration and the MAGA caucus on Capitol Hill. Should that happen, it will be the moment that the United States fully and finally abdicates its role as leader of the Free World.

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