Michael Moynihan: What's Up With Tucker Carlson?

Michael Moynihan, journalist and co-host of The Fifth Column, discusses Tucker Carlson's recent trip to Moscow on the latest episode of Just Asking Questions.

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Michael Moynihan: What's Up With Tucker Carlson?

"One of the ways you understand a society is through its infrastructure," said Tucker Carlson as he stood in front of a Moscow subway station in a video he posted after his two-hour interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin. In contrast to America's public transit, Moscow's "is perfectly clean and orderly," explained Carlson. "How do you explain that? We're not even going to guess. That's not our job. We're only going to ask the question."

On the latest episode of Just Asking Questions, journalist and Fifth Column podcast co-host Michael Moynihan joins Reason's Zach Weissmueller and Liz Wolfe to dissect Carlson's interview with Putin and analyze his subsequent behavior, from releasing videos praising Russia's subway stations and grocery stores to his explanation at the World Government Summit that his reason for not challenging Putin to defend his political repression is that it's not interesting because "every leader kills people."

They also discuss the recent death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in an Arctic prison, Moynihan's experience reporting in Russia, and the state of economic and political freedom under Putin's rule.

Watch the full conversation on Reason's YouTube channel or on the Just Asking Questions podcast feed on Apple, Spotify, or your preferred podcatcher.

Sources referenced in this conversation:

Russia Economy: Population, GDP, Inflation, Business, Trade, FDI, Corruption (heritage.org)

Russia World Press Freedom Index Ranking | REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS

Democracy Index (ourworldindata.org)

World Population Review, from World Bank data:  Median Income by Country 2024

Comments

[Minadin]

How did you put it the other week?
He's going through his 'Barcelona is so much better than Paducah' 3rd-year university foreign exchange student phase.

[Public Entelectual]

Barcelona is to Paducah as Whit Stillman is to Tuck Carlson.

[InsaneTrollLogic]

And Tony Watts is to your vvonky vvebsite.

[Public Entelectual]

Actually, Tuck interviewed, Willie Soon.

[Mother's Lament]

Tuck intervievved"

Fixed that for you.

[Public Entelectual]

Tony Watts?

His first name is actually VVillard.

https://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2015/03/20/willard-anthony-watts-born-19581-is-an-american-blogger-who-runs-the-climate-change-denialism-website-watts-up-with-that

[mad.casual]

My favorite part of the whole “Tucker Carlson Goes To Moscow” narrative is the own goal of Potemkin Villages with a little bit of journalistic elitism/othering built in.

Putin, The Tyrant, treating fox-disowned independent Western journalist Tucker Carlson like he was Catherine The Great, Emperor Xi, or President Yeltsin isn’t exactly the goal they think it is and it feels a bit like sour grapes, politically motivated sour grapes even.

[MasterThief]

Pretty sure most people watching his stuff from Russia took it with that grain of salt. Even right-wing fans of his cracked jokes over how obligational his Russia praise came across.

[Gaear Grimsrud]

Hmm Potemkin villages. Is that like when XI went to San Francisco?

[R Mac]

Don’t you dare compare our government to Russia’s!

— Liz Wolfe

[mad.casual]

Is that like when XI went to San Francisco?

Kinda the point. Potemkin was Catherine The Great’s assistant. The apocryphal(?) villages were built to appease her highness. Xi is the Dictator of China, his rank there supercedes Newsome’s rank here. There’s an argument about diplomacy but, yada, yada… Putin, in Russia, out ranks Carlson here or there and has no real obligation to appease or impress him unless you consider Carlson as some God-King of media and/or as appeasement or genuflection to the wider Western audience.

It’s a bit similar to the Trump idiocy. Did anyone really expect Putin to invite Carlson over for an interview and make him clean out the stables? Do you think Joe Biden would invite Piers Morgan over for an interview and take him on a tour of Kensington Neighborhood in Philly? WTF is wrong with you people?

[Granite]

Carlson deserves it - he’s such a sellout it’s disgusting. But I’ll hand it to him, it took balls to give that interview knowing another journalist is rotting in a Russian jail for political reasons - even if he kissed his ass the whole time.

[Beezard]

He used it as a platform to ask for said journalists release. And what country doesn’t have journalists rotting in prison cells?

And the ass kissing bar is set pretty high by those interviewing Zelensky. At no time to Carlin remotely approach the level that level of ass kissing.

I find these takes extremely forced and weird.

[sarcasmic]

Beware the wrath of Carlson's defenders...

[Mother's Lament]

I'm more worried about his censors tbqh.

[JesseAz]

How dare he doesn't take the knee of Ukraine.

[R Mac]

I’d rather be wrong than agree with someone like Tucker Carlson.

[CE]

And yet, the truth is the truth, no matter who says it.

[sarcasmic]

Pathetic and weak.

[JesseAz]

Finally. Sarc has a moment of self reflection.

[Mother's Lament]

Your trolling attempt? Yes.

[R Mac]

Oh, I assumed he was talking about his entire existence.

[Social Justice is neither]

Because the big Blue cities are all doing so well, product flying off the shelves (to theft) when it's not locked away. Then you go outside and dodge hobos and human feces, the true signs of prosperity and liberty.

[Sometimes a Great Notion]

I said before... did Tucker ask himself why if Russia is so glorious, all those Russians keep offing themselves? They sit at the top of the list for sucides worldwide.

[middlefinger]

And so does every homeless opioid addict in the U.S., every single day.

[Granite]

No they don’t dude. Homeless are the most selfish fucks on the planet - they’d never be so thoughtful as to off themselves voluntarily so they aren’t such an abject burden. Fuck em

[mad.casual]

Here in Chicago, things are so great the police just write "CCA" (Closed, Cleared by Arrest) on the case files, without charging anyone and declare their murder clearance rate to be above 50%.

[Public Entelectual]

Same is true a thousand miles down the Trans-Siberian tracks from Moscow.

[TryLogic]

You know, rather than listen to what a bunch of benchwarmers think about something, how about just go and listen to the interview? It's free. Sure, Putin is putting on a show, just like every other leader does in an interview. At least Carlson gives you the opportunity to listen for yourself and draw your own conclusions. Or, you can listen to what other people think about someone else daring to go do some actual, controversial journalism. I prefer a long form interview to being told what to think, but that's just me.

[R Mac]

Outrageous!

[Its_Not_Inevitable]

Next podcast: What's Up With TryLogic?

[Beezard]

Kind of think Tucker was fairly clear about why he was interviewing Putin and what he meant by comparing Moscow to US cities. And that maybe this whole “he prefers tyranny” angle is an obvious straw man? Or willful ignorance when the guy puts out thousands of hours of content explaining (very slowly) exactly what he means and thinks about everything. Including an hour long interview with Glen Beck where he reiterates what he already said for the slow kids at the back.

It’s kind like hearing that Jordan Peterson guy was a Nazi for years, and then when I watched him speak for himself he turned out to be a Canadian self help guru who cries a lot.

[R Mac]

Clean your front hole!

[Mother's Lament]

"Canadian self help guru who cries a lot"

Cries when he talk about how unattractive, poor, low-IQ white men are the worst treated people in Western Society, and how most live miserable, lonely lives.
I'd never thought about, nor seen, anyone empathizing with them before. It took me by surprise.

[mad.casual]

There's also the fact that he was effectively being called a Nazi in public by everyone up to the PM while his wife was battling kidney cancer. Not to make him out to be too much of a hero but it's kind of a The Metamorphosis, The Fault In Our Stars, Gladiator, and Old Yeller rolled into one. You wake up one morning to realize the Western Democracy you knew and loved has gone rabid and you're going to have take time away from your sick wife to find the most effective shooting solution to the problem that almost certainly won't work and/or you won't live to see the success/failure of.

[Granite]

Petersen had a lot of nothing to say.

[mad.casual]

That’s kinda the point. The modern left cannot simply allow people (other than themselves) to say nothing and/or go unpunished for it.

He was a relatively no name college professor/therapist. If they'd said he didn't have to use the pronouns or made an exception for legacy employees or just ignored him he wouldn't be anyone of note, but they can't allow that.

[Public Entelectual]

Petersen , unlike Tuck, is an interesting guy.

He may get excited, but he doesn't go flatfaced as a nodding wokester for whole minutes at a time, which is what makes watching Tuck hilarious to watch until he death spirals into re-quoting himself .

[But SkyNet is a Private Company]

- The Subways were built by Stalin as a showcase for foreigners

-Tucker “That’s my point: they were built by STALIN almost 90 years ago”

[Dillinger]

>>to dissect Carlson's interview with Putin

graphite or aluminum bats preferred when beating dead horse.

[mad.casual]

"Buggy whip till it breaks, then fists." - Great, Great Grandpa Casual (allegedly)

[Dillinger]

smart man.

[middlefinger]

It’s a legitimate question for informed Americans to ask: Why did the U.S. have zero interests in Ukraine under Obama? Why now is our ONLY interest Ukraine? Most reasonable taxpayers ask the question, especially when our population centers (cities) are bankrupt mafia states in decay and collapse. Why Ukraine, the most corrupt country outside Russia in the region?

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Funding, fomenting and directing the 2014 coup is hardly "zero interest", if you were to ask Putin...

Until Putin started rolling tanks into "Europe", Americans were more tempted to look the other way. Georgia (not that Georgia)? Abkhazia? South Ossetia?

Bringing a hot war to European soil tends to get more Western attention.

[Granite]

Yeah but Ukraine is Russia and Russia isn’t considered Europe by any stretch,

[Gaear Grimsrud]

"it's not interesting because "every leader kills people."
Is this controversial statement? Every president in my lifetime killed people in many cases with authority granted by congress. Some of them killed a lot of people. We're talking six or seven figures before .00. Apparently some "libertarians" are unaware of that.

[Mother's Lament]

That's (D)ifferent.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Apparently, some "libertarians" are unaware that Carlson was referring to Putin's alleged murder of Navalny when he said that.

[Granite]

It’s controversial only bc Tucker uses that excuse for why he kissed Putin’s ass, when the reality is he was shit scared not to.

[mad.casual]

Doesn't help that the Hero's Journey, frequently depicted with the protagonist suffering a meaningful loss and facing a crisis of confidence as the result has been largely replaced with someone who picks out their favorite flavor of ice cream, hurts people and steals their stuff when they don't get their way, twerks for the lulz, and then bravely goes to the gynecologist's office.

[CE]

Conducting actual journalism makes the mainstream journalists look bad. Just ask Nancy.

[middlefinger]

When once free market capitalist countries become more and more socialist and crony corporatist (EU: free healthcare, housing, education, job training, interpreting etc)(Israel: free healthcare, dental, housing) (U.S.: free everything for migrants). (Climate fascists: Ban my competitions products, mandate my products for a campaign contribution)it becomes harder to fund a military or yourself against an invasion. Socialism always runs out of other people’s money. Putin and Xi understand this.

[voluntaryist]

Best of all I enjoyed the personal reporting by these 3 libertarians of their trips to socialist countries, e.g., the miserable landscapes, the look of hopelessness on the faces. It was like "skid row" in a big city here, only EVERYWHERE. I'm glad I was born here, but I would be living here, no matter where I was born. And I have been a capitalist and voluntarist for 70 years, looking for a freer place.