“Useful idiot” and Fox News host Tucker Carlson has now repeatedly been the subject of formal Kremlin recommendations for coverage at Russian government-aligned media outlets since the war in Ukraine began, Mother Jones troublingly revealed. One set of these recommendations — which appear to have emerged from a Russian government agency called the Department of Information and Telecommunications Support — is apparently dated March 3, while another is dated March 10. The earlier document states that 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.”
In other words, Carlson’s comments directly back up the Putin government’s arguments amid this conflict. Ret. Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman tore into Carlson for providing this support for the murderous Putin regime. As Vindman put it on Twitter:
‘Live your life in such a way that the Russian government and state tv apparatus doesn’t think you’re an ally [Tucker Carlson]’
Live your life in such a way that the Russian government and state tv apparatus doesn’t think you’re an ally @TuckerCarlson #TuckyoRose https://t.co/g8hgBJyLM8
— Alexander S. Vindman (@AVindman) March 13, 2022
Carlson consistently casts his rhetoric as just asking questions — or whatever, but there’s more to it than that. Through his apparent insistence on contrarianism for the sake of contrarianism, and his lack of apparent regard for the real-world interests of the people of the United States, he’s helping prop up a regime whose recent actions have claimed the lives of thousands of civilians across Ukraine, besides the other atrocities that the Putin government has perpetrated. And Carlson’s support isn’t just ending up as another voice in the crowd — he was the only Western journalist referenced in that March 3 Kremlin document. Recently, Carlson has even tried — among other points disconnected from reality — to excuse the Russian government from responsibility for the war that it started. He has insisted that the U.S. had been “inciting war with Russia,” adding — as though his nonsense was a given fact: “Why in the world would the United States intentionally seek war with Russia? How could we possibly benefit from that war?” The U.S. did not intentionally “seek war with Russia” — and it’s not really directly at war with Russia currently, although it’s substantively assisting Ukraine.
SCOOP: @MotherJones has obtained Russian government memos sent to pro-Putin media outlets telling them "it is essential" they feature Tucker Carlson in their coverage of the #Ukraine war "as much as possible."https://t.co/GFNq4Gx91i
— David Corn (@DavidCornDC) March 13, 2022
