No, Tucker Carlson is not ‘Putin’s mouthpiece’

European lawmakers are calling for a travel ban on Tucker Carlson. After Tucker posted a video on X announcing he was in Moscow to interview Russian President Vladimir Putin, the former prime minister of Belgium said the European Union should consider imposing a travel ban on Tucker for serving as a “mouthpiece” for Putin.

Who doesn’t love freedom of speech and the press? EU bureaucrats obviously don’t.

To call Tucker “Putin’s mouthpiece” even before hearing the interview shows that the left doesn’t really care about the truth.

This is the critical point: This donnybrook of criticism over Tucker’s interview with Putin has no base because the interview hasn’t even debuted yet. They don’t even know the questions Carlson asked Putin. But does it even matter what the questions are? For these people, no, it doesn’t. They will always find a reason to vilify Tucker because he is one of the few, rare individuals with the courage to question the mainstream narrative. That’s why he is the incredible journalist that he is.

How about you and me? Does it matter what questions Tucker asks Putin? Of course it does. I am hopeful he will ask some tough questions of Putin. I believe he will. But that isn't the point. As a journalist, he has the right to interview the most consequential world leaders of our time.

Apparently, Mike Wallace and Barbara Walters get a free pass to interview Putin, but now he’s off-limits to Tucker Carlson? The hypocrisy is unbelievable.

Who cares about the truth?

To those jumping to conclusion about Tucker, calling for sanctions, calling him a traitor: You haven't heard the interview. You have no idea what he asked Putin. The First Amendment doesn’t have an agenda, and it certainly shouldn’t cave to your double standard.

To those of us who care about the truth, who want to judge the interview for ourselves after it airs, here's what I'm going to look for when I watch the interview.

Putin is very good at propaganda. As a former KGB agent, he knows how to manipulate people. Tucker is smart enough to know this. And he knows there are people looking for an American dictator. This is how communists take over. They infiltrate the government and then activate grassroots movements to create chaos and cause all kinds of problems. They want the people in the middle to become so desperate that they say, "Somebody has got to stop this." That's when the chaos and upheaval become unbearable, and people look for a dictator just to make it stop. I am not one of them. I think this is the worst possible scenario.

Aleksandr Dugin, one of Putin’s top advisers, would be pushing Putin to talk about our immorality, our embrace of transgenderism, and our loss of faith. If you don't know who he is, listen to some of my old shows. His whole political philosophy is about using chaos to cause desperation so that a dictator can swoop in like a savior. Dugin is a very dangerous man, and he isn’t called “Putin’s brain” for nothing.

Tucker has got to keep this on the rails. The interview should not be about America’s domestic problems. We can talk about our problems all day long, but I don't want to hear about them from Vladimir Putin, and I certainly don't want to hear his solutions. Tucker should say, “We’re here to talk to you about the American involvement in this war with Ukraine, not our internal policy debates.”

Tucker will have lost control of the interview if he allows Putin to go on about America’s immorality more than once. You can let him remark on that once, and then you’ve got to say, “Mr. Putin, this is not about America. We have our own problems. But I don’t think it’s appropriate to talk to you about that. I'm here to talk to you about NATO, even the ‘American war machine’ if you want to call it that. I want to hear why you’re in Ukraine. Are you willing to look for peace? What would that look like?"

Look for Putin to spin this whole thing into transgenderism and what’s happening in our schools. If he begins to discuss those, then he is peddling propaganda. Those are our problems to discuss, not his. We know who Putin is. We know how he stops drugs on the streets. We know how he treats reporters who speak negatively about him. They tend to fall from their apartment windows. He doesn't care about our issues other than their use of serving his agenda.

Americans deserve an explanation

Tucker also said in his video that we’ve been lied to. I want to know about what. We know our problems with the war in Ukraine all too well. Let's hear solutions and what the truth is. Nobody has ever heard from Putin why the invasion happened in the first place. I want Tucker to ask him why he decided to invade at this time in particular.

I think the reason Putin invaded Ukraine is that we refused to say “no” to NATO expansion. We made a promise that we would not allow Ukraine into NATO. We said that we wouldn't let Ukraine be overrun by Russia, but we also wouldn't let Ukraine into the alliance. It wasn’t written down, but we’re people of honor. That’s all Putin was asking for first, and that promise was violated. That’s just a fact. We went back on our promise, and now Russia has gone back on its promise. But I want to hear the real reason from Putin himself.

I also want Tucker to ask Putin to explain what he means specifically when he refers to Nazis in Ukraine. I did an entire chalkboard “Glenn TV Special” about the neo-Nazis funded by the Ukrainian government for border security. They exist, and they are really bad guys. If there is more to this story, I want to hear about it. There's nobody good in this on either side, Zelenskyy or Putin.

These are the things I’m looking for in Tucker’s interview with Putin. If he keeps the conversation on track like that, it will be a great interview. But to call Tucker “Putin's mouthpiece” before hearing the interview shows that these leftists doesn’t really care about the truth. They don’t care what Tucker — or Putin for that matter — actually says. They don’t care that Tucker is one of several Western journalists to interview Putin and one of many to interview controversial world leaders. All that they care about is their agenda — truth or Tucker Carlson be damned.

Want more from Glenn Beck? Get Glenn's FREE email newsletter with his latest insights, top stories, show prep, and more delivered to your inbox.