Tucker Carlson has been spotted hanging out in Moscow over the weekend, the Russian Telegram channel Mash reported, igniting speculation that the former Fox News host was visiting the Russian capital for an interview with the country’s president, Vladimir Putin.
Carlson, who maintains close ties to former President Donald Trump and has been rumored as a possible VP pick, arrived in Moscow on Thursday, and was photographed at the famed Bolshoi Theater, where he reportedly attended the ballet “Spartacus.”
Already on Sunday, the news was generating buzz among U.S. politicians. Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has been featured on Russian State TV due to the generally pro-Russia line she has taken following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022, wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that “Democrats and their propagandists in the media are spasming at the prospect of Tucker Carlson interviewing Putin.
“They feel entitled to the position of gatekeeper and believe they are the ones who tell you what to think and believe,” Greene added. “We have a free press in this country, and it’s people like Tucker Carlson who we depend on to speak the truth!”
Former Illinois Representative Adam Kinzinger, whom Carlson frequently derided on his Fox News show, responded to the news on X, formerly Twitter, calling Carlson a “traitor.” Kinzinger has previously described Carlson’s show as “completely evil” and “full of Russian propaganda.”
While Carlson’s reasons for traveling to Moscow are not immediately clear, the news host has long been a vocal defender of Putin’s authoritarian regime. He consistently came to the Russian president’s defense following the invasion of Ukraine, after which he became one of the most high-profile critics of U.S. involvement in the war. He has called Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy “sweaty and rat-like” and described Ukraine as “a pure client state of the United States State Department.”
His consistently pro-Putin, anti-Ukraine rhetoric earned him a prominent spot on Russian state TV, which frequently features his commentary. In 2022, when Carlson still had his Fox News primetime slot, Mother Jones magazine reported on a memo the Kremlin sent to Russian state news outlets, asking them to “use as much as possible fragments of broadcasts of the popular Fox News host Tucker Carlson.” When Carlson was fired from Fox News in April of 2023, Russian news outlets leaped to his defense with headlines like “Carlson fired over fearless Ukraine reporting,” The Washington Post reported at the time.
Last September, Russia’s top state news channel began advertising a news show with Carlson as the host. Carlson denied any knowledge of the program, calling it “more Russia-related bullshit.” “I’ve never heard of this, or the channel,” he told the Financial Times. “Of course, I’m not hosting a show on Russian television. That’s absurd.”
But that same month, Carlson indicated his interest in interviewing Putin, telling the Swiss magazine Die Weltwoche that the U.S. government had prevented him from doing so. “Nobody defended me,” Carlson said at the time. “I don’t think there was anybody in the news media who said, ‘Wait a second. I may not like this guy, but he has a right to interview anyone he wants, and we have a right to hear what Putin says.”
Jack McCordick
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