A few weeks ago, I wondered how Tucker Carlson would react to being publicly humiliated by Vladimir Putin. We have an answer. We also have Carlson’s response to Jon Stewart’s skewering.
On February 15, I wrote about how Russian President Putin mocked Carlson during his lapdog interview, then afterward on Russian TV. I was curious to know how Carlson would respond, if at all. “He has proven himself to be thin-skinned and vengeful,” I wrote. But “will he suck it up for the sake of his love for fascism and hatred for U.S.?”
Newsweek reported on Carlson’s comments in a podcast hosted by Lex Fridman and published this week. (Emphases below are mine):
Fridman specifically asked Carlson for his opinion on Putin's justification for continuing the war in Ukraine, which in part is to achieve the "denazification" of the country. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who is Jewish, has repeatedly dismissed the Kremlin's claims that Kyiv's government is openly "pro-Nazi."
"I thought it was one of the dumbest things I'd ever heard," Carlson told Fridman. "I didn't understand what it meant."
As it turns out, Carlson was also recently mocked by Jon Stewart. Stewart spent nearly 15 minutes hilariously ripping apart Carlson and his visit to Russia on The Daily Show. Commenting on Carlson’s slobbering over Russia's subways, grocery stores and streets, Stewart said, “Perhaps, if your handlers had allowed, you would have seen there is a hidden fee to all your cheap groceries and orderly streets.”
Not surprisingly, that got more of a rise out of Carlson. But when it came to choosing between a fellow American citizen and Putin, guess which side Carlson chose?
From The Hill:
“That’s kind of what I was saying: Even the Russians under Vladimir freaking Putin can live like this. And no, it’s not a feature of dictatorship,” Carlson said during an interview this week. “That’s the most, I think, discouraging and most dishonest line by people like Jon Stewart who really are trying to prepare the population for accepting a lot less. He is really a tool of the regime in a sinister way, always has been.”
…
“It’s like, no, [I’m not a Stalinist], I’m an American. I’m like a decent person,” he said. “I just want to be able to walk to the grocery store without being murdered. … It’s really dark if you think about it, you know?”
Tucker Carlson deserved every bit of the shredding he got from Stewart.
Have some laughs at Carlson’s expense below, from the February 19, 2024 The Daily show.
1) Tucker said he thought it’s “worth reading” Putin’s speech wherein Putin expressed fear ‘that NATO…would pre-emptively attack us [Russia]". About that Tucker shockingly commented, "I can’t evaluate whether that’s a fear rooted in reality"
2) Tucker said he was “very annoyed” by Putin’s “tiresome…filibustering” monologue on Russian history. Tucker noted that “the last thing you want when you’re interviewing somebody is to get rolled and I didn’t want to be rolled”, then moments later, Tucker in effect justified letting himself get rolled because the interview was “kind of not about me”, “in retrospect I thought that was really really interesting” [hence his annoyance??]
3) According to Tucker, Viktor Orban, who is “like smart on a scale we’re not used to in our leaders” told Tucker “Ukraine doesn’t really have an economy”.
4) Tucker said, “Anybody who doesn’t hate war shouldn’t have power”. I was reminded of Tucker’s statement on Fox on 2/24/2022: “Vladimir Putin started this war. So, whatever the context of the decision that he made, he did it. He fired the first shots. He is to blame for what we are seeing tonight in Ukraine.”
