Russian Media Hypes Tucker Carlson Visit: ‘Americans Are in Shock’

Hosts on Russian state-run television recently hyped up the news that former Fox News host Tucker Carlson was spotted visiting Moscow.

Carlson was the host of Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight from 2016 to 2023, which eventually grew to become the conservative network’s biggest primetime news program while also garnering heated criticism for the host’s alleged promotion of conspiracy theories and white supremacist rhetoric. Last April, however, Carlson was abruptly fired by the network with no official explanation ever being given.

Speculation highlighted the fact that Carlson was named in the recently litigated Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit, which saw Fox News pay the company $787.5 million after its hosts knowingly promoted Donald Trump’s false claims about widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election. Reports also suggested that texts from Carlson unearthed during the lawsuit, some of which were deemed racist or defamatory to his colleagues, were to blame for his departure.

On Thursday, Russian news outlet Mash reported that Carlson had been spotted recently at various places around Moscow, including a visit to the Bolshoi Theater. While Carlson himself has yet to comment on the visit or confirm the reason for the visit, many have speculated that he might be there to interview Russian President Vladimir Putin for his current series, which he shares directly to X, the platform previously known as Twitter. Carlson has, in the past, frequently shared stances that were complimentary or supportive of Putin and Russia, especially amid its invasion of Ukraine, with some opponents accusing him of echoing Russian government propaganda.

On Sunday, Julia Davis, founder of the Russian Media Monitor watchdog group, shared a clip to X from a recent broadcast of Solovyov Live in which the hosts discussed Carlson’s appearance in Russia and mocked Americans in response to it.

“Americans are in shock. What is happening?” one of the hosts asked. “How did one of the best-known American journalists, Tucker Carlson, suddenly end up in Russia somehow and even went to the Bolshoi Theater to see the Spartacus ballet?”

The hosts went on to note that no official information is available as to what Carlson intends to do in Russia, while also mentioning his past claims about wanting to interview Putin, but being prevented from doing so by the U.S. government. They then spoke with John Varoli, an American journalist specializing in Russian matters, about the development.

Varoli went on to claim, without evidence, that mainstream media outlets in the U.S. are controlled by the White House and are blocked from reporting things that show Russia in a positive light, which he surmised would be the aim of Carlson interviewing Putin.

“Let me tell you, he is a very dangerous person,” Varoli said. “He is very dangerous for the Washington regime, for the White House. The White House sees him as enemy number one among American dissidents. They hate him very much.”

Newsweek reached out to the White House press office via email for comment.

Varoli’s claims about the potential impact that Carlson’s interview could have are countered by reports about the dwindling engagements he has seen since his move to X. As highlighted last summer by Media Matters reporter Matthew Gertz, while Carlson’s first video on the platform received nearly 140 million impressions, by the eighth episode the number was down to around 8 million. More recent episodes have fluctuated between levels close to the latter figure and down to as low as a little over 2 million.