Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton thinks of right-wing pundit Tucker Carlson as a “useful idiot.”
“If you actually read translations of what’s been said in Russian media, they make fun of him. I mean, he’s like a puppy dog,” Clinton told Alex Wagner on MSNBC’s Alex Wagner Tonight on Wednesday.
The 2016 Democratic presidential nominee’s remarks follow Carlson’s Tuesday announcement that he travelled to Moscow to interview Russian President Vladimir Putin. It would mark the first time that a member of the American media has interviewed Putin since the start of his invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
“After having been fired from so many outlets in the United States, I would not be surprised if he emerges with a contract from a Russian outlet because he is a useful idiot,” Clinton told Wagner, using a disparaging term often ascribed to Vladimir Lenin. “He says things that are not true. He parrots Vladimir Putin’s pack of lies about Ukraine, so I don’t see why Putin wouldn’t give him an interview.”
Putin’s war on Ukraine has come with an onslaught of misinformation and propaganda, which Carlson, too, is known for.
On Tuesday, Carlson, who was once a Putin critic, said he interviewed Putin because “not a single Western journalist has bothered.”
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov contested Carlson’s claim, saying that the Kremlin had received “many requests” from the West, namely “major network media: traditional TV channels and large newspapers,” The Washington Post reported on Wednesday. The Kremlin said the interview was conducted Tuesday, and Carlson said it would be shown on Thursday.
Carlson, who insisted that the interview was not out of adoration for Putin, suggested that viewers learn “as much as you can” from the interview.
“And then, like a free citizen and not a slave, you can decide for yourself,” he added.