This week, Tucker Carlson performed an interview with Vladimir Putin for his present on X. The interview, which is over two hours lengthy, was ostensibly an try to interview the Russian chief concerning the struggle in Ukraine. As a substitute of doing that, nevertheless, Putin as a substitute launched right into a prolonged digression about his personal model of Russian historical past earlier than razzing Carlson to his face.
I’ll say this: This interview is well the funniest factor I’ve seen all yr. Granted, it’s solely been six weeks because the begin of 2024, however Carlson’s awkward, bizarre discuss with Russia’s autocrat had me doubled over laughing a number of instances.
There are a number of layers to the humor. For one factor, Carlson was compelled to fly to the Kremlin to conduct this interview. This context, in and of itself, is humorous. Tucker is summoned to his interview topic’s royal palace, hoping, I’m positive, for an informative and thrilling dialogue that might lend itself nicely to his different/rightwing/infotainment model of net content material. What he bought, as a substitute, was a comically boring historical past lesson about nationwide borders and an ongoing stream of insults. The dumbfounded look of confusion on Carlson’s face as Putin droned on incessantly is actually one thing to be savored:
That mentioned, Tucker tried his darnedest to get one thing commercially viable out of his chat. At virtually each flip, nevertheless, Putin undermined these makes an attempt, opting as a substitute to mock Carlson and make him appear like an fool.
One of many extra memorable examples of this was when Putin instructed Carlson, in so many phrases, that he was clearly too silly to get a job on the CIA (which Carlson ironically attempted to do previous to changing into an anti-Deep State shill):
At one other juncture, Carlson requested Putin if he noticed God’s design in world political affairs. With a bored look that appeared to indicate he was speaking to somebody with a under common IQ, Putin merely mentioned “no” earlier than explaining that worldwide legal guidelines ruled world occasions, not a deity.
There are clearly loads of issues you’ll be able to say about Vladimir Putin however that he’s unintelligent shouldn’t be one among them. Putin’s demeanor all through a lot of the interview with Carlson is kind of that of a person making an attempt to clarify algebra to a goat.
The memes impressed by the episode have been plentiful and hilarious. I appreciated this one:
And this one:
And this one:
That Carlson needed to interview an influential world chief who’s at present engaged in a brutal struggle is commendable, although it’s troublesome to not really feel that Carlson’s content material is all the time beholden to a broader ideological narrative designed to rile up viewers with out giving them a number of context. I’d prefer to see a superb interview with Putin, though this wasn’t it. It made me chuckle although.
Trending Merchandise
