Tucker Carlson has announced he'll be interviewing Vladimir Putin soon in a video designed to garner attention for the effort. But like a lot of things Carlson says these days, some of it is pure and obvious bunk. Take for instance his claim about being the first western journalist to bother interviewing Putin.

Speaking of western countries take on the war in Ukraine Carlson said, "Their media outlets are corrupt. They lie to their readers and viewers and they do that mostly by omission." He continued, "Since the day the war in Ukraine began, American media outlets have spoke to scores of people from Ukraine and they've done scores of interviews with Ukrainian President Zelensky. We ourselves have put in a request for an interview with Zelensky and we hope he accepts. But the interviews he's already done in the United States are not traditional interviews. They are fawning pep sessions specifically designed to amplify Zelensky's demand that the US enter more deeply into a war in Eastern Europe and pay for it. That is not journalism. It is government propaganda, propaganda of the ugliest kind, the kind that kills people."

Having established that it's bad for media outlets to lie to their viewers by omission and to engage in propaganda, Carlson then preceded to lie to his viewers by omission and engage in propaganda.

"At the same time our politicians and media outlets have been doing this, promoting a foreign leader like he's a new consumer brand, not a single western journalist has bothered to interview the president of the other country involved in this conflict, Vladimir Putin," Carlson said.

Here's what Tucker Carlson isn't telling you, according to Putin's own spokesperson at the Kremlin. In fact, Putin has received numerous requests for interviews from western journalists who are not only willing but eager to talk to him. But Putin has refused to talk to any of them.

“Mr. Carlson is wrong,” [Kremlin spokesman Dmitry] Peskov said during his daily briefing for reporters. “We receive many requests for interviews with the president.”

Peskov conceded that the Kremlin routinely blocked media interview requests from large Western outlets, but he said it gave Carlson the nod because “his position is different” from the major “Anglo-Saxon media.”...

Peskov insisted that Western media were eager to interview his boss. “When it comes to the countries of the collective West, we receive requests from large network media, traditional TV channels and large newspapers, which can in no way boast of trying to at least look impartial in terms of covering what is going on,” Peskov said.

It's pretty embarrassing having the Kremlin blow a hole in your explanation for the interview before the interview even airs. In any case, Carlson's claim that no one has "bothered" to interview Putin is the kind of lie by omission he's supposedly against. In fact, many outlets he's judging to be failures have put in requests for an interview with Putin, it's just that they've been rejected for not being pro-Putin enough.

But obviously the Kremlin feels differently about Tucker Carlson. Carlson said even before the current war that he didn't care about what was happening in Ukraine and that he was "rooting" for Russia. That's the kind of commentary that gets you in to see the boss. Carlson was granted this interview not because he's the only journalist who bothered but because he's the only talking head the Kremlin considers likely to be sufficiently fawning at this time.

Of course Carlson could prove me wrong by going after Putin with some hard hitting questions about the reason for the invasion, about the American journalists who are currently sitting in Russian prisons, about Putin's plans to remain in office for life, etc. But based on some of Carlson's previous interviews, my expectations for this are pretty low.

As David pointed out earlier, there's a story going around today that Carlson could be sanctioned for doing this interview. This is apparently just a few EU lawmakers mouthing off. Carlson shouldn't be punished for doing this but he also shouldn't be praised when he's lying about the situation. He got this interview not because he's the only interviewer who tried but because he's been signaling for months that he supports cutting off US aid to Ukraine, something Putin himself supports and would love to see happen.

Why I'm interviewing Vladimir Putin. pic.twitter.com/hqvXUZqvHX

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) February 6, 2024