Tucker Carlson: ‘I’ve been accused of being pro-Putin, and I’m not’

Conservative commentator Tucker Carlson brushed away assertions that he is sympathetic to Russian President Vladimir Putin following his recent trip to interview the leader in Moscow.

When discussing whether Putin’s goal in agreeing to sit with him for the interview “was to win a Western audience to his perspective,” Carlson said their interaction “didn’t make me more pro-Putin. Not that I was.”

“And by the way I should just say at the outset, I’ve been accused of being pro-Putin, and I’m not,” he argued Tuesday during an appearance on Glenn Beck’s BlazeTV+ program. “And if I was, that’s OK, too. I’m an adult man, an American citizen, I can like or dislike anyone I want. I can have any opinion I want.”

During the more than two-hour conversation Carlson published with Putin last week, the Russian president spread propaganda about his war effort in Ukraine, attacked the United States and other Western nations and painted himself as a righteous world leader.

The pundit additionally published video clips of him and his team shopping in Russian grocery stores, using public transportation and praising the country’s infrastructure and economy.

Days after his interview with Putin published, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny died in a penal colony after being detained by the Kremlin. President Biden has said Putin is to blame for Navalny’s death.

Carlson, in a statement to The New York Times after Navalny’s death was announced, said “no decent person would defend,” what Putin had done.

The former Fox News host, and favorite pundit of former President Trump, has taken widespread criticism from mainstream media outlets and some Republicans for his trip to Russia.

The host was ousted from Fox last spring and has since started a new show on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, and launched an upstart media company of his own.

—Updated at 11:47 a.m.