Tucker Carlson, a conservative American talk show host close to former US president Donald Trump, said on Tuesday he was in Moscow to interview Russian President Vladimir Putin. The update comes amid speculation about the interview and that he met Putin for an hour.
If the interview happens, Carlson will become the first American media personality to land a formal interview with Putin since he launched a full-scale military offensive in Ukraine nearly two years ago.
"We're here to interview the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin. We'll be doing that soon," Carlson said in a video posted on X, formerly Twitter.
"There are risks to conducting an interview like this obviously. So we've thought about it carefully over many months."
He said he or his team took no money from any government or any group for the interview and that they paid for the Moscow trip themselves.
Footage of Carlson's car passing outside the Presidential Palace in Moscow had been widely shared on social media sites. Visuals doing rounds on social media also show the conservative media personality in the Russian capital attending a concert at the Bolshoi Theater.
Carlson also spoke to a reporter from the pro-Kremlin newspaper Izvestia on Monday about his trip to Russia.
“I just wanted to see Moscow. I read so much about it. So I wanted to talk to people and look around and then see how it's doing,” the publication quoted him as saying. “It’s doing very well.”
Carlson has repeatedly attacked US media outlets for interviewing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, saying they were "government propaganda" for pushing the call for more American aid.
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