Vladimir Putin surprised by lack of ‘sharp
questions’ in Tucker Carlson interview
Russian president says he was grateful to the former
Fox News host for the two-hour interview, which made headlines around the world
Guardian
staff and agencies
Thu 15 Feb
2024 09.51 CET
Russian
president Vladimir Putin has said he is grateful to rightwing US television
host Tucker Carlson for his interview last week, but was surprised by a lack of
“sharp questions”.
Former Fox
News star Carlson released a two-hour interview with Putin in Moscow on
Thursday last week which made headlines around the world.
Putin told
Russian TV presenter, Pavel Zarubin, on Wednesday that he had wanted Carlson to
behave more aggressively, which would have given him the right to reply just as
pointedly.
‘Talkshow
or a serious conversation?’ Tucker Carlson’s interview of Putin offered neither
“To be
honest, I thought that he would behave aggressively and ask so-called sharp
questions. I was not just prepared for this, I wanted it, because it would give
me the opportunity to respond in the same way,” Putin said in comments
broadcast on Wednesday.
There was
no sign of a response from Carlson in the hours following the Zarubin
interview, other than a glowing endorsement of the quality of Moscow’s subway
system.
Carlson’s
interview was the first Putin had conducted with an American journalist since
the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine nearly two years ago, and in it Putin
said the west needed to understand that it was “impossible” for Russia to be
defeated in Ukraine.
“Since we
are not able to have direct dialogue [with the west] today … we have to be
grateful to Mr Carlson to be able to do it by his intermediary” role, Putin
said.
“Frankly, I
did not get full satisfaction from this interview,” Putin said.
The Kremlin
said Putin had agreed to the Carlson interview because the approach of the
former Fox News host differed from the “one-sided” reporting of the Ukraine
conflict by many western news outlets.
Carlson was
criticised by some in the western media for the lack of tough questions in the
interview. Putin acknowledged that Carlson had “tried to interrupt me several
times” but praised the conservative journalist, who is close to former US
president Donald Trump, for his “patience”.
Elsewhere
in his interview with Zarubin, Putin said that he preferred Joe Biden to Donald
Trump but was willing to work with any US president.
Zarubin
asked the president who was “better for us” out of Biden, a Democrat, and
Trump, a Republican.
Putin
replied without hesitation: “Biden. He is a more experienced, predictable
person, a politician of the old school,” but added “we will work with any US
president who the American people have confidence in.”
Kremlin
documents leaked in 2021 suggested Putin had personally authorised a secret
operation to support a “mentally unstable” Donald Trump in the 2016 US
presidential election during a closed session of Russia’s national security
council.
Putin and
his security chiefs agreed a Trump White House would help secure Moscow’s
strategic objectives, among them “social turmoil” in the US and a weakening of
the American president’s negotiating position.
Reuters and
Agence France-Presse contributed to this report
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