On Tuesday, Tucker Carlson confirmed he will interview Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The sit-down will mark the first time a member of the Western media will interview Putin since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine that sparked the ongoing war between the two countries.
“We are not encouraging you to agree with what Putin may say in this interview,” Carlson said in a video posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “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.”
Carlson did not specify when his interview with Putin would be published.
According to The Hill, while speaking from what appeared to be an elevated balcony in Moscow, Carlson acknowledged what he called “risks to conducting an interview like this” and noted he and his crew paid for the trip to Moscow themselves and did not take any financial assistance from government groups to travel.
However, the next day Putin’s press secretary called out Carlson for lying about his interview with the Russian leader.
While Carlson made many claims in his 4-minute video, one that stuck out was, “Not a single Western journalist has bothered to interview the president of the other country involved in this conflict, Vladimir Putin.”
Dmitry Peskov said they were wrong. The long-time Putin press secretary told the New York Times, “Mr. Carlson is not correct, but he couldn’t have known that. We receive a lot of requests for interviews with the president.”
What? This has been overtaken by events!