Mother Jones
The Tucker Carlson–Kremlin Bond Just Got Stronger
A version of the below article first appeared in David Corn’s newsletter, Our Land_. The newsletter comes out twice a week (most of the time) and provides behind-the-scenes stories and articles about politics, media, and culture. Subscribing costs just $5 a month—but you can sign up for a free 30-day trial._
Among the politerati, there’s been much cogitating about what happens to Trumpism and MAGA once Donald Trump is gone. (The assumption is that, yes, one day he will not be here.) What might be next for this cultish movement without its godhead, especially given the cleavages that have emerged over the Iran war, the Epstein files, Israel, and other matters? Can any of Trump’s craven lieutenants win the support and devotion of Trump’s following? JD Vance? Marco Rubio?
Some watchers of the right have speculated that Tucker Carlson might be the natural leader of post-Trump Trumpism. He has broken with Trump over the Iran war, but he remains perhaps the top influencer on the right, leading a rump group of conservatives (which includes former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and soon-to-be-former Rep. Thomas Massie) who once were full MAGA and Trump loyalists but now are…something else. Perhaps we could flatter them by calling this group America First conservatives, though that doesn’t truly capture their nativism and extremism.
So it’s important to pay attention to Carlson’s peregrinations and associations. And he made a major move a few weeks ago, appearing for an hour on RT, the Russian state-controlled media outfit.
RT is more than just Vladimir Putin’s propaganda mill. It runs disinformation operations, one of which was exposed two years ago when the Justice Department indicted two RT employees for funneling at least $10 million to pro-Trump media figures in the United States, including Benny Johnson and Tim Pool. (Johnson, Pool, and the others claimed they didn’t know the extravagant amounts they were paid originated in Moscow.) After that indictment was disclosed, Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of RT, went on Russian state television and boasted that RT worked “undercover” and engaged in “partisan warfare, guerrilla warfare,” and she claimed it had created in America a network of “bloggers with unbelievable audiences” that had “an electorally significant influence.” (For more on this RT operation, see my forthcoming book, How Russia Won: Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and the Fight for America.)
“I’m a podcaster. I’ve never run anything,” Carlson told Rick Sanchez on RT. “I’m not planning to run for president, for sure.”
Carlson showed up on RT earlier this month as a guest on a show hosted by Rick Sanchez, a former CNN anchor who was fired in 2010 after making comments criticized as antisemitic. Subsequently, Sanchez put in a short stint at Fox News, and in 2019 he joined RT America, which shut down after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Three years later, he moved to Moscow and became the anchor of RT International’s flagship show.
At the start of their hourlong chat—with the former Fox personalities noting they were close pals—Sanchez reported that when he recently interviewed right-wing influencer (and nutball conspiracy theorist) Candace Owens during a trip she made to Moscow, she said she would back Carlson if he runs for president in 2028. Carlson responded with his trademark high-pitched chuckle and said, “I’m a podcaster. I’ve never run anything…I’m not planning to run for president, for sure.”
Once that matter was dispensed with, Carlson spent much of the broadcast sharing opinions that must have heartened the Kremlin. He claimed that the United States government is not controlled by elected officials but by a “deep state” that is hell-bent on abolishing Russia. Democracy is an “illusion” in the United States, he insisted, and the “English-speaking West has been destroyed” by enemies purposefully deploying “mass migration” as a weapon. Russia is next, he contended, because they want a war with Russia. Carlson bleated:
Why do they hate Russia so much? Well, I think it’s very much related to the fundamentals of Russia. Maybe being the last big white Christian country on the planet is a very dangerous thing to be. I don’t want to believe these things…But watching carefully for a long time has convinced me that the wacko fringe’s darkest suspicions may have some truth in them. Because what’s the other answer? Why would there be a war with Russia? Nobody wants this. But our leaders want this, and you have to ask why.
Carlson repeatedly asserted—with Sanchez enthusiastically agreeing—that the conflict in Ukraine is an American war against Russia, not a brutal invasion mounted by Putin.
As is often the case with demagogues, Carlson didn’t specify who they are. Who is orchestrating this war with Russia because it’s a “white Christian” nation? Who knows?
Carlson repeatedly asserted—with Sanchez enthusiastically agreeing—that the conflict in Ukraine is an American war against Russia, not a brutal invasion mounted by Putin. “They think they have the right to control Russia,” he said, maintaining that they were deliberately provoking Russia in the hope that Putin would respond by attacking NATO with a hypersonic or nuclear weapon, that Russia could then be declared the aggressor, and that a third world war would be launched. That is, they are engineering what could become a nuclear Armageddon.
This must be music to Putin’s ears: Nefarious forces in control of the US government are pursuing a diabolical scheme to break up Russia, and that explains the war in Ukraine.
But who’s behind this plan to start WWIII? Trump? Rubio? Pete Hegseth? Carlson never fingered any actual person. He kept referring to the “deranged leadership class.” He claimed the US government “has been completely hijacked by people using the United States for their own interests.” Again, who? Is it Vance? Carlson denounced both the Democratic and Republican parties as evil—issuing the complaint there’s little difference between the two—and warned there’s been “a total takeover of the United States by people who hate the United States.” Would that be Russell Vought? Or Mike Johnson?
Carlson’s convoluted argument, is in sync with Moscow’s talking points: The United States is responsible for the war in Ukraine, and Kyiv is an illegitimate government and no more than a pawn in an international conflict ignited by Washington.
Over and over, Carlson referred to the “American war against Russia,” never once mentioning Putin’s invasion of Ukraine or Russia’s attacks on civilian targets, its alleged war crimes, and its kidnapping of thousands of Ukrainian children. Ukraine is “not a sovereign country fighting for its freedom,” he argued, just a “client state of NATO and the United States” that’s being used to wipe out Russia.
Carlson was fuzzy on the motivation of these deep state cabalists who supposedly initiated this war on Russia and who are trying to spark a worldwide conflagration. At one point, he maintained their goal is to stop the East from rising and that the “only way to reset [the current international status quo] is with a global war.” His convoluted argument, though, is in complete sync with Moscow’s talking points: The United States is responsible for the war in Ukraine, and Kyiv is an illegitimate government and no more than a pawn in an international conflict ignited by Washington. He praised Putin for practicing restraint in response to attacks on Russian soil—which he attributed to the United States and the CIA, not Ukraine. Sanchez piped up that the Russians he golfs with are angry that Putin has not struck back more forcefully.
The interview was a lovefest for Putin and Russia. Sanchez praised Moscow for delivering healthcare, maternity leave, and overtime pay to the citizenry—and for building more churches than are being constructed in the United States. He said that the people of Russia want Putin to stay in power. Carlson called Russia “a beautiful country, an amazing country, my favorite country I’ve ever visited.” There was no talk of Putin’s repressive ways or suppression of democracy.
They both offered critiques of America that overlap with those of the left: The political system is dominated by corporate interests, Carlson opined. Big Tech—including Palantir, Apple, and Google—controls the system. “Power is in the hands of capital,” Carlson declared, sounding like a DSA member. He also exclaimed that American politicians “are controlled by Israel,” which he called a “criminal state” for its assaults in Gaza that have killed thousands of civilians.
But don’t look for Carlson to build a coalition with progressives. He assailed Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, saying she “doesn’t like whites.” That remark showed his anti-elite populism is propelled by his racialist views. The United States and the West are being de-whitened by an “invasion” of dark-skinned migrants that’s been cooked up by them, and Russia is now targeted for eradication because it’s a white Christian nation. His conspiracism centers on race.
It’s no surprise that Carlson is aping Putin’s line on the war in Ukraine.
It’s one thing to be used by Putin’s propagandists; it’s another to join forces with them.
In 2022, as Russian troops stormed into Ukraine, he echoed Russian disinformation that falsely claimed the United States operated bioweapons labs in Ukraine. (That was one reason that Moscow gave for its “special military operation.”) At that time, I revealed the Kremlin had instructed state-friendly media outlets to include clips and quotes of Carlson in their articles and broadcasts. “It is essential to use as much as possible fragments of broadcasts of the popular Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who sharply criticizes the actions of the United States [and] NATO, their negative role in unleashing the conflict in Ukraine, [and] the defiantly provocative behavior from the leadership of the Western countries and NATO towards the Russian Federation and towards President Putin, personally,” a Kremlin document said. It summed up Carlson’s position: “Russia is only protecting its interests and security.”
It’s one thing to be used by Putin’s propagandists; it’s another to join forces with them. Carlson told Sanchez his policy is to “speak to anyone who will have me,” including Israeli television or North Korean television. Yet by appearing on RT, he’s collaborating with an organization that’s part of Putin’s intelligence and disinformation network that supports this horrific war in Ukraine and that targets the United States. He also demonstrated that the conspiracism of the America First right overlaps with the disinformation pushed by Putin and his operatives.
Carlson did not say much to Sanchez about his purported plan to form a third party. But he hailed Greene, Massie, and Joe Kent, a former Trump administration intelligence official, who each broke with Trump on the Iran war, the Epstein files, or both—and who each have been far-right conspiracy mongers. Is this a sign that Carlson is heading toward a third party or political movement with race-driven conspiracism and deep-state paranoia at its core? He is pushing an anti-plutocrat populism that is fueled by racial resentment and that depicts the American system as a phony democracy, totally corrupt, with a shadowy “leadership class” that’s deceitful and treasonous. In his view, white America—and the entire West—has been betrayed and destroyed by them, whoever they are. And now they are scheming to start WWIII and annihilate Russia. No wonder the Kremlin loves Carlson.
Carlson is a master of the art of self-deprecation. When Sanchez praised him for courageously speaking out, Carlson said, “I’ve had no effect on recent history other than to whine about it.” The danger is that his whining could become a siren call for what follows Trumpism.