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The news of the death of Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny very quickly put a focus on Tucker Carlson, the right-wing talk host who recently trekked to Moscow to interview Vladimir Putin.
Carlson told the Daily Mail today that “it’s horrifying what happened to Navalny. The whole thing is barbaric and awful. No decent person would defend it.”
In the wake of reports of Navalny’s death, Carlson faced another round of backlash after interviewing Putin last week and for subsequent social media posts. In them, Carlson trumpeted a Moscow subway station and a grocery store.
Former congresswoman Liz Cheney wrote on X/Twitter earlier today, “This is what Putin’s Russia is, Tucker Carlson. And you are Putin’s useful idiot. Same with you J.D. Vance and other Putin-wing Republicans who are working to defeat Ukraine in its struggle for freedom.”
Carlson posted his interview with Putin on X/Twitter on Feb. 8, and in X/Twitter videos, he talked of the virtues of Moscow’s subway station and a supermarket, where he pointed out lower prices than in the United States. He said, “If you take people’s standard of living and you tank it, through filth and crime and inflation, you literally can’t buy the groceries you want, maybe it matters less what you say, whether you are a good person or a bad person, you are wrecking people’s lives and their country, and that is what are leaders have done to us. And coming to a Russian grocery store — the heart of evil — and seeing what things cost now, people live, it will radicalize you against our leaders. That’s how I feel anyway.”
At the World Governments Summit this week, Carlson was asked why he didn’t talk about Navalny, about freedom of speech, about assassinations or about restrictions on opposition in the upcoming election.
“I didn’t talk about the things that every media outlet talks about because those are covered, and I have spent my life talking to people who run countries, in various countries, and have concluded the following: That every leader kills people, including my leader. Leadership requires killing people,” Carlson said. “That is why I wouldn’t want to be a leader. That press restriction is universal in the United States. I know because I have lived it…. There is more censorship in Russia that there is in the United States, but there is a great deal in the United States.”
Those comments drew some comparisons to Donald Trump‘s interview with then-Fox News host Bill O’Reilly in 2017. Less than a month after taking office, Trump was asked about Putin and O’Reilly noted, “He’s a killer.”
Trump responded, “There are a lot of killers. We’ve got a lot of killers. What, do you think our country’s so innocent?”
During comments on reports of Navalny’s death, President Joe Biden called on Congress to pass a $95 billion aid package that includes a new infusion of money to help Ukraine in its war with Russia. Biden also blasted Trump’s recent comment encouraging Russia to “do whatever the hell they want” to NATO countries that don’t pay their due. Trump’s comments reflect a strain in the Republican party that admires Putin and his posturing, a reversal of Reagan-era conservatism.
Stuart Stevens, who was lead strategist for Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign, wrote, “The world will be pointing to the murder of Navalny and trying to shame Trump’s party for supporting Putin. It won’t work. Trump wants Putin’s power. He is in court demanding immunity to murder opponents. Violence is at the core of Trumpism. As Tucker Carlson makes clear, Trump supporters look at Russia and ask, ‘Why can’t America be Russia?’ They hate the America we love. They must be defeated.”
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