Conservative American journalist Tucker Carlson has said on Instagram that his interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin will be aired at 6pm EST on Thursday.
Carlson, who launched his own network on X (formerly Twitter) in June 2023, traveled to Moscow for a sit-down with Putin. The Kremlin confirmed the meeting on Tuesday.
The Russian president rarely grants one-on-one interviews to foreign press. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said that Putin has “no desire” to speak to Western media outlets that have “completely one-sided” opinions and “aren’t even trying to be impartial.”
Carlson said he wanted to talk to the Russian leader because many Western news outlets “lie to their readers and viewers” and are biased in their coverage of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. “That’s wrong. Americans have the right to know all they can about a war they are implicated in,” he said in a video on X on Tuesday.
The journalist has been criticized by some politicians and media figures at home and abroad who say his interview with Putin will only amplify Russian “propaganda.”
“He parrots Vladimir Putin’s pack of lies about Ukraine,” former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told MSNBC.
Newsweek quoted one former and two current members of the European Parliament as saying that Carlson could be banned from visiting the EU for providing “a platform” for Putin.