by Malek Dudakov
[REGNUM] TV journalist Tucker Carlson's unexpected visit to Russia caused quite a stir in Washington. Anti-Russian hawks and supporters of the Democratic Party once again criticized Carlson, accusing him of betrayal and treason.
Tucker has long been accustomed to this kind of insults, and they no longer affect his active work.
It will soon be a year since he was fired from Fox News. The reasons for the dismissal were various: from the dissatisfaction of large pharmaceutical corporations with Carlson’s position criticizing vaccination to the reluctance of Rupert Murdoch himself, the owner of the channel, and his children to have such a freedom-loving journalist as their host.
For Tucker, getting fired from Fox News ended up being a pretty good career turn. After all, it has long outgrown all American cable television.
As a Fox News host, Tucker had a daily audience of 4–5 million viewers. This was a record for a talk show on American TV and much more than Fox News' liberal competitors like CNN or MSNBC. They are watched by at most 1–2 million.
But after his dismissal, Carlson started his own show on Twitter/X. And here he managed - not without the support of Elon Musk - to reach tens of millions of viewers.
Tucker attracts Americans because he does not speak according to a memorized method, no matter Republican or Democratic. And he invites guests who are hard to imagine on cable television - be they unsystematic leftists or right-wing politicians and activists.
On Carlson's show, Musk tests out a new system for monetizing content on his social network. It will allow popular bloggers to earn decent money in the form of subscriptions directly from their viewers.
Thus, Tucker will be able to gain, in a certain sense, financial independence, at least from large sponsors who previously limited his work at Fox News. In this case, it will be even more difficult for Carlson to be “canceled” or ruined for politically incorrect judgments.
Tucker himself began to expand and scale his media activities over time.
It is no longer limited to the domestic American agenda. Carlson traveled to Hungary last year, where he interviewed Viktor Orban. The latter is trying to actively work with the American right, so that if Donald Trump wins the election, he will be able to come to an agreement with them. And remove pressure from Hungary for its unwillingness to follow the liberal mainstream of the West.
Carlson travels around Europe, meeting Spanish and Italian right-wing Eurosceptic populists. The opportunity to reach an American audience is also important for them.
At one point, there may even be talk of forming a kind of “conservative international” from American Republicans and European right-wingers. Trump has always treated them with sympathy and, if they return, he will certainly support Eurosceptics, shaking the European Union from inside and outside.
Tucker recently visited Argentina, where he spoke with then presidential candidate Javier Miley, who soon won the election.
And Carlson recently organized a large tour of Canada in support of Canadian conservatives, who hope to defeat Justin Trudeau in the 2025 elections. Tucker has long criticized the state of affairs in Canada and, during the truckers’ riot, even called for the deployment of American troops and the overthrow of Trudeau’s “dictatorship.” Well, the Canadian right-wingers greeted Carlson very cordially.
But now Carlson has sharply raised the stakes and came to Moscow.
Since at least 2021, he has wanted to visit Russia and interview Vladimir Putin. Moreover, three years ago this led to a big scandal in the United States. Then an employee of the National Security Agency (NSA) contacted Tucker and showed correspondence from his personal email messages, confirming the fact that he was being monitored. A little later it turned out that the NSA was also leaking data from Carlson’s correspondence to liberal journalists loyal to the Democratic Party.
The hint was understood, and Tucker forgot about the trip to Russia for a while.
But now, after three years of open war with the establishment in Washington, Carlson is probably no longer afraid of problems with the intelligence services. After all, he has long and vehemently criticized Joe Biden’s policy in Ukraine, the confrontation with Russia and the slide into the third world war. He calls for interviews with anti-war activists and those who express an alternative point of view to Washington about what is happening in Ukraine.
And during a visit to Hungary, Tucker gave a keynote speech about Russia. He called the reason for the Washington establishment's hatred of Russia that it remains a Christian country. Carlson himself is confident that the NATO bloc and the European Union will face complete collapse in the coming years, and with them the entire post-war structure of the world will collapse.
Well, this visit to Moscow will allow Tucker to show Western and American audiences the standard of living in Russia.
| Separate, one assumes, from the opulence of President Putin’s various residences for himself and his family... and his mistresses. |
Do not underestimate the importance of such texture.
Tucker is America's most popular journalist. And he, better than anyone else, can influence the minds of Americans. Moreover, tens of millions who usually watch it. It was Carlson’s firm position - condemning the West’s proxy war in Ukraine - that became one of the reasons why the lion’s share of Republicans oppose the continuation of the conflict.
According to polls, two-thirds of Republican voters would like to cut off the Ukrainian tranches. The opinion of the electorate also influences the agenda in Washington - it is not for nothing that the Republicans in the lower house have been blocking the allocation of money and weapons to Kyiv for many months in a row. Trump is also adapting to the opinion of the electorate, promising to end the conflict in 24 hours and agree with Russia on the division of Ukraine.
But Carlson also has a more long-term goal, in addition to being a conductor of certain ideas in the United States.
It’s not just that he actively acquires international connections. There was talk that Tucker, if Trump wins, could join the new president’s team. And not in any official position.
Tucker is offered to become a kind of unofficial emissary of Trump, who can be sent to other countries to negotiate on sensitive issues. This role was played during Trump’s first term by his son-in-law Jared Kushner, husband of Ivanka Trump, and the creator of the Blackwater private military company Erik Prince, who has now become more active again. And he also criticizes what is happening in Ukraine, considering the war lost for the United States.
But now Carlson will have the opportunity to prove himself.
He could, for example, negotiate with Russia about the future security system in Eastern Europe. Or, through unofficial channels, support the European right-wingers fighting the European bureaucracy in Brussels. This would be an interesting career path for the still popular journalist.
But Tucker is no stranger to this - he has already outgrown his work on cable television. And now, obviously, he is gradually beginning to outgrow his media career. The next thing in line is participation in big international politics.
...The man who was so stupid he beat fourteen professional politicians, a former tech CEO, and a brain surgeon for the Republican nomination in 2016, then beat 
WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — Fox News agreed Tuesday to pay Dominion Voting Systems nearly $800 million to avert a trial in the voting machine company’s lawsuit that would have exposed how the network promoted lies about the 2020 presidential election.