Tucker Carlson is back in Russia to gush over how much he loves the country under Vladimir Putin.

The former Fox News host posted a video on X Tuesday from Moscow’s Red Square announcing that he’s interviewing Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. The purpose of this visit to Russia, Carlson said, is because U.S. support of Ukraine has “driven the U.S. ever closer to a nuclear conflict with Russia.”

“We are, unbeknownst to most Americans, in a hot war with Russia,” Carlson said. “An undeclared war, a war you did not vote for and that most Americans don’t want but that is ongoing.”

Carlson attacked President Biden for allowing Ukraine to strike Russian territory with American-made missiles and made the misleading implication that the U.S. military is directly involved in Ukraine’s war with Russia.

“And because of that war, because of the fact that the U.S. military is killing Russians in Russia right now, we are closer to nuclear war than at any time in history. Far closer than we were during the Cuban missile crisis,” Carlson said.

Carlson claimed that the State Department blocked him from interviewing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and attacked American media outlets for failing to offer “the Russian perspective” on the war. He also said he asked Lavrov whether Trump’s election meant that the war with Ukraine could be ending soon, echoing a promise from Trump that Putin has already thrown cold water on.

According to a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Carlson’s interview lasted about 90 minutes and will be released in a few days after being edited and translated. There was no word on whether the Russian government itself is doing the editing and translating, or whether Carlson’s interview would face government censorship.

That’s a legitimate question to ask, considering that the last time Carlson went to Russia, six months ago, his interview with Putin was so deferential to the Russian leader that even Putin mocked Carlson’s interview skills. At one point during that interview, Putin made fun of Carlson’s failed attempt to join the CIA.

Carlson’s show on X is so pro-Russian that it was aired on Russian state television at one point, although Carlson’s producer swore that it was without permission. When Carlson’s interview is posted within the next few days, we’ll all see how pro-Trump and pro-Putin he is now that Trump is returning to the White House.

Pete Hegseth called his mom to come do some damage control.

Penelope Hegseth appeared on her embattled son’s former show, Fox & Friends, on Wednesday and was asked about the email she sent him in 2018 in which she begged him to stop lying, cheating, sleeping around with, using, and abusing the women in his life. Instead of answering the question, she chose to point the finger back at the media in a public plea for her son’s nomination for defense secretary.

“We all believe in him, we really believe that he is not that man he was seven years ago; I’m not that mother.… I am here to tell the truth. To tell the truth to the American people, to the senators on the Hill, especially our female senators. I really hope that you will not listen to the media, and that you will listen to Pete.”

She then turned her scorn on the media, and on The New York Times, saying that they threatened her, and described them as “almost criminal” for reporting on the 2018 email she sent to her son, who could likely become the head of the Pentagon. “They are in it for the commission, for the money, and they don’t care who they hurt: families, children,” she claimed.

Pete Hegseth is on the Hill today trying to convince senators that he’s a changed man, as his nomination has been upended by troubling allegations of rape, sexual harassment, and financial mismanagement in previous workplaces. Beyond all that, he is an unabashed Christian nationalist who would bring a violent, incendiary energy to the Pentagon. The status of his nomination is yet to be determined.

With growing scrutiny mounting against Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump is reportedly looking at replacements for his defense secretary nominee—but the number two pick might be an even more dangerous selection to run the Pentagon.

The president-elect is having casual conversations at Mar-a-Lago about tapping Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for the highly coveted Cabinet position, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

Unlike the majority of Trump’s “anti-qualified” picks to run his government, DeSantis would, at least, have some level of experience for the role. The 46-year-old briefly served as a Navy lawyer in Iraq and was part of a legal team that advised the Guantánamo Bay detention center, where he backed torture methods such as force-feeding.

DeSantis was also one of Trump’s more outspoken primary challengers, sparking a bitter—if lopsided—rivalry that cast the Florida governor as disloyal to the MAGA cause. But the pair’s shared perspective on “woke” politics in the military might be enough to get him in the door.

But DeSantis isn’t........

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