In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce an American political commentator and pro-Kremlin propagandist, Tucker Carlson. He’s best-known for his outrageous lies and for his pro-Putin, anti-Ukrainian views while working for Fox News.

Ironically, Carlson started his career as a fact-checker for the conservative journal Policy Review. He also applied to work for the CIA, but was denied, after which he started pursuing a career in journalism. Tucker has worked for pretty much every big network in the US.

He worked for CNN between 2000 and 2005, for PBS between 2004 and 2005, for MSNBC between 2005-2008, finally moving to Fox News in 2009. In 2016, Carlson started hosting Tucker Carlson tonight, which soon became the network’s most watched TV show in its time slot.

In 2021, Time magazine declared that he might be “the most powerful conservative in America”. He’s also been described as a “leading voice of white grievance politics”. There are no big surprises in Carlson’s political views: he opposes abortion, supports the right to keep…

…and bear arms, and doesn’t consider climate change a threat. He’s described Roe v. Wade as “the most embarrassing court decision handed down in the last century”.

Carlson has been caught lying on many, many occasions. In one of his speeches, he ironically said that “The truth is contagious…the more you tell the truth, the stronger you become…the more you lie, the weaker and more terrified you become.”

In 2017, Carlson claimed that he doesn’t consider Russia a serious threat against the US, and called the US to cooperate with Russia against ISIS. He’s said that Putin doesn’t hate America as much as the liberals do. He’s suggested that there is no reason to hate Putin.

He’s condemned Putin for the invasion, but initially called it a mere “border dispute”. After the fervent conspiracy theorist Jacob Creech speculated that Russia is targeting “biolabs in Ukraine”, Carlson soon started supporting the theory, platforming people like…

…Glenn Greenwald who of course had no clue about any of that, but is always ready for some US bashing. In 2019, he said that “We should probably take the side of Russia if we have to choose between Russia and Ukraine”.

Russian TV propagandists often use Carlson’s segments to support their messaging. Russian leadership allegedly sent a memo to Kremlin-friendly media outlets that it’s “essential” to use Tucker’s video clips “as much as possible”.

After Donald Trump Jr. met with Russian officials, asking for dirt on Hillary Clinton, Tucker came to his defense, saying that he’d only been “gossiping with foreigners”.

He’s supported the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory, claiming that the Democrats are planning “demographic replacement” to increase their voter base. He’s also said that white supremacy is not a problem in the US.

One of the craziest Carlson segments was the “Eat the Bugs” video, where he depicted WEF founder Klaus Schwab as the man forcing people to eat insects. Schwab was acted by one of the worst comedians the world has known, Jay Dyer.

When Joe Biden visited Kyiv in February 2023, Tucker suggested that the air raid sirens heard were “for show”. He’s also called Zelenskyy “an instrument of total destruction”, and said that he “has no interest in freedom or democracy”. Incidentally, he’s never said the same thing about Putin.

In the midst of the war in Ukraine, he said about Zelenskyy that “He is a dictator. He is a dangerous authoritarian who has used a hundred billion in U.S. tax dollars to erect a one-party police state in Ukraine”.

In March 2023, Carlson invited conspiracy theorist Russell Brand as a guest on his show “Tucker Carlson Today”. Funnily, Brand later claimed that “he [Carlson] comes from a place of authenticity, and isn’t entirely beholden to commercial interests”.

Other notable vatnik guests on Carlson’s show include Douglas Macgregor and Jimmy Dore. He has described Macgregor as “one of the people we trust to give us real information”.

And yet I haven’t found any incidents where Macgregor had been right in his predictions on the Russo-Ukrainian War.

Dore did his classic preaching against the “deep state” and the “military industrial complex”. Apparently it’s that “US war machine” that’s now bombing cities and killing and raping civilians in Ukraine, and did so previously in Syria, Georgia, Chechnya, Moldova, etc.

Tucke was sacked by Fox News on 24 April 2023, pretty soon after Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit against Fox News was settled for $787.5 million. Dominion’s legal team released some damning text messages, in which Tucker privately doubted the false claims about the…

…stolen election of 2020. He also mocked Trump’s advisors and texted Sean Hannity that the White House Correspondent for Fox News, Jacqui Heinrich should be fired for fact-checking Carlson’s claims about Dominion. The text messages also revealed, that Tucker…

…hates Trump “passionately”, further stating that “there really isn’t an upside to Trump”. NYT reporter Ben Smith has said that Carlson was a media source for various journalists who often wrote critically of Trump.

Dominion’s CEO, John Poulos, is looking into publishing Tucker’s redacted messages in the court filings, saying that “we’re seeking accountability and we’re not going to stop until we get it”.

After his departure from Fox News, the Russian propagandists have been talking about Tucker non-stop, many of the Kremlin-sponsored networks going as far as offering him a job.

I’m pretty sure Carlson will continue his lying on some other media platform or in politics.

ADDENDUM:
Tucker has also shared the doctored, fake Pentagon leaks from the “Donbass Devushka” Telegram channel, saying that “despite direct U.S. involvement, Ukraine is in fact losing the war, ” and that “seven Ukrainians are being killed for every Russian”.

Donbass Devushka