Even the Kremlin Is Fact-Checking Tucker Carlson Ahead of Putin Interview

Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson is hyping up an interview with Vladimir Putin, which will be the first one-on-one interview the Russian president has given a Western journalist since his country invaded Ukraine in 2022.

In the lead-up to the interview, there has been such a surge in misinformation on platforms like X and from Carlson himself that even the Kremlin has felt the need to step in and fact-check the right-wing personality. 

In a video posted on X that has been viewed over 80 million times, Carlson (incorrectly) claimed that he is the first Western journalist to interview Putin about the invasion because nobody else has even bothered. After accusing U.S. media of propagandizing in support of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Carlson said that “not a single Western journalist has bothered to interview the president of the other country in this conflict, Vladimir Putin.” 

This claim was instantly debunked by Western journalists who said that their outlets have requested interviews with Putin, but were denied. Perhaps because the idea of nobody even bothering to reach out to Putin is a tad embarrassing, the Kremlin also stepped in to fact-check this claim. On Wednesday, the Russian news agency Interfax reported that Russian Presidential Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov corrected Carlson. 

“No, Mr. Carlson is wrong. In fact, he cannot know this,” Peskov said. “We receive many requests for interviews with the president, but mainly, when it concerns the countries of the collective West, we are talking about large online media: traditional TV channels, large newspapers, which cannot boast of attempts to at least look impartial in terms of covering what is happening.”

Numerous instances of fake transcripts from the interview have gone viral on Telegram and X, often spread by users who paid for a blue check. Peskov also addressed these fakes, saying, “It is obvious that we are talking about an absolute fake. There were a lot of them, there are and will be, they need to be treated accordingly.”

Many observers have speculated that Carlson was granted the interview because he is more likely to be friendly to Putin than other Western journalists. Peskov said that he believes Carlson is “in no way pro-Russian,” nor “pro-Ukrainian,” but that he has a perspective that “differs from the rest” of Western media. 

“We are not encouraging you to agree with what Putin may say in this interview, but we are urging you to watch it. You should know as much as you can, and then, like a free citizen and not a slave, you can decide for yourself,” Tucker said in his video on X.

The comment seemingly ignored the fact that Putin’s post-invasion speeches, which laid out Russia’s stated objectives in great detail, were widely translated by and discussed in Western media.