Tucker Carlson’s interview with Vladimir Putin lasted 127 minutes. The Russian dictator spoke for about 125 of those minutes, gleefully using the opportunity to ramble endlessly about his twisted view of history and reality.
Carlson demonstrated that he knows nothing about Russia, Ukraine, the war, and Putin. His performance was lamentable, with his facial expression ranging from the bemused to, mostly, the confused. He exposed himself as an ignoramus in thrall to the great leader who not unjustifiably treated him with amusement and condescension, almost as if Carlson were a kindergarten pupil.
Putin was in good form, rattling off dates and names with a rapidity that clearly taxed Carlson’s wits. Carlson mostly listened, never posing tough questions and engaging in probing follow-ups. He let the Russian dictator steal the show. In a word, Carlson was outclassed and outperformed. It may be time for him to take a course or two at some reputable journalism school or try his hand at plumbing.
In turn, Putin demonstrated that he is beholden to a traditional Russian imperialist worldview that justifies Russia’s expansion as part of its historic mission. Putin also revealed that he is obsessed with history (and a strikingly bizarre history at that, one that gets just about everything about East Europe wrong), answering most of Carlson’s questions with long historical digressions that were visibly beyond the American’s comprehension.
Finally, Putin’s perorations showed that he suffers from a profound victimization complex, one bordering on inferiority. The world, and especially the “collective West,” is and always has been out to get Russia and, by extension, him. Russia, naturally, is and always has been innocent. It’s the others who harbor and harbored ill intentions, who collaborate, who commit crimes.
Miraculously, although Mother Russia spans eleven time zones, her enlargement never involved violence, coercion, or intrigue. (Ivan the Terrible and the two “great” monarchs, Peter and Catherine must be laughing in their graves.) She is, was, and always will be for “peace.” Naturally enough, on terms that accord with Russia’s historical mission.
Putin said nothing new. Ukrainians don’t exist, Ukraine is artificial, it’s full of Nazis, it’s a U.S. satellite, the 2014 Revolution of Dignity was a CIA-orchestrated coup, the Ukrainians started the war that same year, seizing Crimea was a defensive move, the all-out invasion of 2022 was also defensive, Russia is always ready to sign a peace deal, and so on. Been there, done that.
Carlson could easily have questioned Putin’s distorted historical narrative and his mendacious depiction of Russia’s genocidal war, but—surprise—he didn’t. After all, children don’t question adults.
The interview is not completely without value. Carlson’s American acolytes are likely to view it as a tour de force. His detractors will see it as meriting a failing grade. One hopes that the undecided camp will judge it dispassionately. If they do, they will be aghast at the thought that Carlson might occupy a position of authority within a Trump administration.
The interview is also valuable, because it suggests just what a President Trump is likely to do and say about Russia. If Putin can run circles around a quasi-intellectual with some knowledge of history such as Carlson, he will twist Trump around his little finger. Trump may kick and scream, but Putin will smile condescendingly and hold out until Trump agrees to all his terms. True, Trump claims to be a tough guy capable of getting his way. But Putin, the former KGB agent who’s ordered the deaths of a score of his opponents, is tougher.
The interview is especially valuable because it shows, beyond any reasonable doubt, that Putin inhabits a different universe. Carlson states in his introductory comments that Putin’s 30-minute ramble about Russian history is a “sincere expression of what he thinks.” Carlson is right. Just as Adolf Hitler sincerely believed that Jews were evil, just as Joseph Stalin sincerely believed that “enemies of the people” had to be eliminated, so, too, Putin sincerely believes that Ukraine and Ukrainians should not exist.
All of this is, as noted above, old hat, but it does underscore yet again that, as Gold Meir put it, “You cannot negotiate peace with someone who has come to kill you.” There can be peace with Russia only after Putin is gone and his way of thinking about reality is removed from Russian political culture and becomes confined to Russia’s neo-Nazi and fascist circles. Until that happy time comes, Russia will, as former president and prime minister Dmitry Medvedev has pointedly said, Russia will wage war against Ukraine and the West.
Dr. Alexander Motyl is a professor of political science at Rutgers-Newark. A specialist on Ukraine, Russia, and the USSR, and on nationalism, revolutions, empires, and theory, he is the author of 10 books of nonfiction, including Pidsumky imperii (2009); Puti imperii (2004); Imperial Ends: The Decay, Collapse, and Revival of Empires (2001); Revolutions, Nations, Empires: Conceptual Limits and Theoretical Possibilities (1999); Dilemmas of Independence: Ukraine after Totalitarianism (1993); and The Turn to the Right: The Ideological Origins and Development of Ukrainian Nationalism, 1919–1929 (1980); the editor of 15 volumes, including The Encyclopedia of Nationalism (2000) and The Holodomor Reader (2012); and a contributor of dozens of articles to academic and policy journals, newspaper op-ed pages, and magazines. He also has a weekly blog, “Ukraine’s Orange Blues.”
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