Tucker Carlson: Putin's Indispensable Idiot

Putin Has a Host of "Useful Idiots" in the West - But Tucker Carlson is in a Class By Himself: "One Fool to Fool Them All"

Tucker Carlson, when he was still on FOX News,  November 2019 (two+ years before the main invasion of February 2022, but more than five years after Russia’s invasion of Crimea and the Donbass, 2014)  – “Why shouldn’t I root for Russia – which I am?” – later in the broadcast he said he was “of course” joking (did someone from FOX say to him in the meantime WHAT DID YOU SAY?!?!?!?!?!?!), even though right after he asked the question he said “and I’m serious.”

Soon after saying he was just “joking” about favoring Russia, who had been committing widespread war crimes in Ukraine since their 2014 invasion, he was back to favoring Putin. Dec 3, 2019, when Jim Jordan is pointing out that it was Trump who gave Ukraine Javelins, which Obama wouldn’t do, and that Trump imposed sanctions, Tucker says “I should say just for the record, I’m totally opposed to these sanctions . . . I think we should probably take the side of Russia if we have to choose between Russia and Ukraine” https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/fox-news-tucker-carlson-russia-trump-putin-ukraine-conflict-impeachment-a9230551.html

Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine did not begin in 2022, they were well known and documented since the Russian invasion of 2014:

https://twitter.com/olex_scherba/status/1534521081226305537

https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1582736574961197056

https://twitter.com/olex_scherba/status/1631584994928803840

https://twitter.com/olex_scherba/status/1647899133628280832

https://twitter.com/13serhi/status/1664350502442741762

August 29, 2014, Russians massacred 366 Ukrainian soldiers to whom they had promised safe passage:

https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1696498249081696442

Russia’s February 2022 Invasion

While many expected Russia to win a quick victory in Ukraine, and later changed their minds on Ukraine’s prospects due to their initial success in repelling the Russians, Tucker’s main “go to” guy on Ukraine, Colonel Doug MacGregor, has never wavered from a “doom and gloom” narrative of Ukraine’s fate, and Tucker has continued to follow him, uncritically giving him a platform, never calling him to account for his failed predictions, etc.

Here is MacGregor shortly after the main invasion, telling Stu Varney that after the first five days failing to take Kyiv, Russia has realized they have been too soft, and they’re changing course, it will all be over in ten days:

https://x.com/MingtheMercil15/status/1705831434601070945

MacGregor: Ukraine will be annihilated ! ! ! ! !

An American service member (Jack Teixeira) leaked classified intelligence in the spring of 2023, which estimated that the kill ratio in the war to that point was 7:1 in favor of Ukraine. Russians put out disinformation which reversed that ratio, and Russian media’s “colleague” Tucker fell for it.

The same intel leak mentioned that the US had a few dozen personnel in Ukraine for logistical support, which Tucker twisted into the claim that we had combat troops fighting Russians ! ! ! ! In this case he wasn’t just falling for propaganda, he was making up his own by twisting facts.

Which reminds me, when FOX had to fire Tucker and answer a law suit for slander, they had this defense:

“The ‘general tenor' of the show should then inform a viewer that [Carlson] is not 'stating actual facts' about the topics he discusses and is instead engaging in 'exaggeration' and 'non-literal commentary.'” "… given Mr. Carlson's reputation, any reasonable viewer 'arrive[s] with an appropriate amount of skepticism' about the statement he makes."

An American named Gonzalo Lira was jailed for taking pictures of Ukrainian military installations (i.e., espionage). Lira was obese and unwell, and died in Ukrainian custody, which produced outrage in Tucker Carlson. One can tell a lot about someone not only by what bothers him, but by what doesn’t bother him. What he does say, as well as what he doesn’t say. So what should we think about a man who is silent about Russia deliberately targeting Ukrainian hospitals in a bombing campaign, but outraged by an obese criminal dying, who might have been saved by care in such a hospital. As far as I know, Tucker has never expressed outrage for any of Russia’s massive record of war crimes.

In a classified briefing to Congress, December 2023, Defense Secretary Austin warned that if Putin got what he wanted in Ukraine, he would go on other countries on his “to do” list. This should not be a controversial opinion, as Putin himself has expressed his desire to revive the glory days of Russian empire. “Putin the Great.”

The West has been characteristically slow to believe that Putin would act on his emperial ambitions, but he has a record. After Putin invaded Georgia in 2008, the President of Poland predicted that Ukraine would be next.

The consequences of Russia invading Poland or the Baltics, since they are NATO allies (as now Finland and Sweden are also), is that the US would be called upon to send our combat troops to defend our NATO allies. In short, “help Ukraine now with our arms, or have to send our troops to Europe to fight Russia later.” To disagree with such a warning, one would have to assume that Putin is lying about his ambitions, or say that it’s crazy for Putin to think such a thing.

But Putin already showed that he is capable of such delusional thinking - he said in 2014 that he could conquer Ukraine in two weeks, and a host of Russians has repeated such contemptuous boasts often since then.

Whether intentionally distorting Secretary Austin’s words, or (eagerly) reporting misinformation about the briefing, this is how Tucker perverted Austin’s warning:

“defense secretary Lloyd Austin informed members that if they don’t appropriate more money for Zelensky, ‘we’ll send your uncles, cousins and sons to fight Russia.’ Pay the oligarchs or we’ll kill your kids.”

And just as Tucker serves as a “useful idiot” for Putin, a host of supposed conservatives served as “useful idiots” for Tucker, telling Americans that Secretary Austin threatened to send American troops to fight Russians in Ukraine. Which I guess makes Tucker a next level up useful idiot - Putin’s indispensible idiot.

Russia TV has of course also found him useful: here is a montage of praise for Tucker on Russian TV; Tucker is “one American we wouldn’t want to kill.”

When FOX fired Tucker, Russia Today offered him a job - possibly trolling the West, but it would seem like a good fit for “colleague” Tucker Carlson.

The Destruction of the Nova Kakhovka Dam

In June 2023 Ukraine’s Nova Kakhovka Dam was destroyed. Multiple lines of evidence pointed to Russian responsibility, including feasibility considerations and seismic data, as well as radio intercepts (Russians bragging about it).

Not surprisingly, Tucker blamed Ukraine for the loss of the dam. He had no actual evidence, but his reasoning was that Ukrainians the previous year had discussed the possibility of blowing up the dam. And in fact, early in the war Ukraine destroyed a much smaller dam to flood areas north of Kyiv to slow the advance of the initial Russian invasion force. Possibly this action saved Kyiv from being captured.

In other words, Ukraine destroyed a dam as a defensive measure. Evidence points to Russia blowing the Nova Kakhovka Dam for the same reason - i.e. defensive. The Soviets did the same thing for similarly defensive reasons in WWII.

Ukraine invades Russia, August 2024

Ukraine invaded the Kursk region of Russia on August 6 and controls an area of around 1000 square kilometers as I write. It’s a good time to remember a prediction made by Colonel MacGregor to the ever credulous Tucker Carlson

August 21, 2023, MacGregor told Tucker that within 6-8 months (thus by April 21, 2024, latest, 100’s of 1000’s of Russian troops will have finished going through Ukraine and be menacing at the borders of Poland. Instead, we see that Ukraine has invaded Russia, capturing more territory in a few weeks than Russia has captured in Ukraine in many months. See at time 24:20

Potemkin Village Idiot

Tucker went to Russia, saw the sites, and interviewed Putin as well as Alexander Dugin. The term “Potemkin Village” refers to artificial villages put up in the time of Catherine the Great in order to produce a fake image of prosperity to impress visitors. It is an apt comparison to describe Tucker’s tour.

Here is a short where he marvelled at the Moscow train station (no rats, no one passed out from drug overdoses, etc.). One nice thing about Twitter/X is the “comment” feature, where people who actually know something can reply to the propagandist. Here is one comment:

“Stalin built Russian metro as a literal piece of propaganda...it was built 2 show off 2 foreign journos who will never see impoverished rest of Russia. It's very common for authoritarian nations to have nice capital cities for prestige reasons...here's North Korea's.“

Tucker said he was “radicalized against our leaders” when he saw how cheap groceries were in Moscow. A “community note” comments that Russians spend on average 60% of their salaries on groceries, which is something characteristic of poverty. So Tucker’s perspective is radicalized by forgetting to compare prices with the ability to pay.

He was also impressed with grocery carts that have a coin deposit feature to ensure their return, which saves money by not having store personnel spend time retrieving the carts. What Carlson was impressed by has been used by discount grocer Aldi’s for 40 years. Tucker’s a millionaire, so no surprise he hasn’t been to Aldis. Probably not Walmart either. Tucker was wowed by seeing escalators that could handle shopping carts. Same escalators one finds at Walmart.

November 20, 2024, Tucker says that Putin is “the only adult” (27:50) after Ukraine launched some US supplied ATACMS (missiles) a short distance into Russia, where North Korean troops have joined the fight against Ukraine.

I look forward to the day that Tucker Carlson has the reputation that he deserves. Better yet, that he himself repents of being a tool of war criminals and profiteer of giving them cover.

Related: See “A Vaudeville Clown’s Last Act: How Tucker Carlson’s Lies About DeSantis Expose His Own Fraud.”