Been listening to the Tucker/Putin interview while cleaning my house, and a few thoughts come to mind:
- Tucker is getting a lot of heat for simply interviewing him. I'm of the opposite mind, and think Putin should be interviewed by western sources in general.
- I would have had a lot more respect for Tucker had it been an adversarial interview. Instead, Putin took complete control without meaningful pushback, and the questions were primarily those you would expect from a Putin apologist.
- That said, it's hard to fully hold that against Tucker. Like... I fault him for not having used more prepared, tough questions. But not being adversarial in general? Not cutting him off when he was giving more of a rambling speech than an answer? Putin dominated and emasculated him, but he's a scary m'f'r and I would have found it difficult to hold my ground in Tucker's shoes, for sure.
- I'm not sure what audience Putin was really aiming for here. Someone like me watches this interview, and I literally wanna wave a NATO flag. Tucker's actual audience found Putin not reiterating talking points they'd been fed, as he talked over their heads and past their attention spans. The crowd who thinks this interview shouldn't have happened weren't going to watch it anyway. Actual policy makers have heard Putin 's words before, and he didn't offer them any opening that they didn't have already.