Since he was fired by Fox News last year the broadcaster has been interviewing controversial figures including Alex Jones, the conspiracy theorist, and Russell Brand, the disgraced comedian.
There was fervent speculation that Carlson, who has often made sympathetic comments about Putin, was planning to interview the Russian leader after local media posted several images of the broadcaster around Moscow. He was pictured in a box for a performance of Spartacus at the Bolshoi Theatre and eating at a hotel.
He claimed the interview with Putin had been planned “carefully over many months” and said he was conducting it to “inform” Americans.
Carlson claimed Western citizens are “mostly unaware” of what is happening in Ukraine and “think nothing has changed”.
He also accused American media outlets of being “corrupt” for publishing interviews with Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, which he described as “fawning pep sessions specifically designed to amplify Zelensky’s demand that the US enter more deeply into war in Eastern Europe and pay for it”.
“That is not journalism”, he said. “It is government propaganda, propaganda of the ugliest kind, the kind that kills people.”
He also accused media outlets of promoting Mr Zelensky “like he’s a new consumer brand” while not interviewing Putin, despite the latter operating a watertight PR machine.
‘You’ve never heard his voice’
“Most Americans have no idea why Putin invaded Ukraine or what his goals are now, you’ve never heard his voice, that’s wrong”, he said.
Responding to Carlson’s social media monologue, Christiane Amanpour, CNN’s chief international anchor, said it was “absurd” to suggest American journalists hadn’t been trying to interview Putin.
“Does Tucker really think we journalists haven’t been trying to interview President Putin every day since his full scale invasion of Ukraine?”, she wrote on Twitter.
“It’s absurd – we’ll continue to ask for an interview, just as we have for years now.”
Carlson also made unsubstantiated claims that the Biden administration had “illegally spied” on and leaked text messages three years ago to “stop a Putin interview that we were planning”.
He claimed the US president had attempted to do “exactly the same thing” last month but he had decided to travel to Moscow.
“We are not here because we love Vladimir Putin, we are here because we love the United States and we want to remain prosperous and free,” he said.
Carlson, who said he had also put in for an interview with Mr Zelensky, said his team had paid for the trip themselves and had not taken money from any government or group.
‘You can decide for yourself’
“We are not encouraging you to agree with what Putin may say in this interview, but we are urging you to watch it,” he said.
“You should know as much as you can, and then, like a free citizen and not a slave, you can decide for yourself.”
Carlson previously claimed that the US should take Russia’s side in its war with Ukraine, and denounced Volodymyr Zelensky as a “dictator” and a “dangerous authoritarian”.
After Carlson was sacked from Fox News last year in light of its $787million (£625 million) defamation settlement, Russian media claimed he had been ousted because of his “fearless” reporting on Ukraine.
The last time Putin sat down with an American journalist was in June 2021 with NBC’s Keir Simmons.
Emily Foster is a globe-trotting journalist based in the UK. Her articles offer readers a global perspective on international events, exploring complex geopolitical issues and providing a nuanced view of the world’s most pressing challenges.
