Tucker Carlson gushes over Vladimir Putin and defends not asking him about civil rights abuses in Russia
Carlson: “Leadership requires killing people”
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From Day 1 of the World Government Summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, streamed live on YouTube
EMAD ELDIN ADEEB: Comparing the culture, the competence between Vladamir Putin and Biden, how do you see the two men now running the world?
TUCKER CARLSON: If this were boxing the fight would be called by the medic. So, and I say that as an American, and I don’t have another passport, I don’t plan to ever leave my country, my family’s been there hundreds of years and I love it and I am a patriotic American and I grieve when I see that the president is non compos mentis.
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The most radicalizing thing I would just say for me in the eight days I spent in Moscow was not simply the leader of the country who of course is impressive, it’s the largest landmass in the world and it’s wildly diverse, linguistically, culturally, religiously, it’s hard to run a country like that for 24 years, whether you like it or not. So an incapable person couldn’t do that, he is very capable and many of you know him and you know that.
What was radicalizing, very shocking and very disturbing for me was the city of Moscow, where I’d never been, the biggest city in Europe, 13 million people. And it is so much nicer than any city in my country, I had no idea.
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ADEEB: You should challenge in the roles of an interview, and you’re a master in your business. It’s not for me to give you a lecture about that, but you should challenge some ideas. For instance, you didn’t talk about freedom of speech in Russia, you did not talk about Navalny, about assassinations, about restrictions on opposition in the coming elections.
CARLSON: I didn’t talk about the things that every other American media outlet talks about.
ADEEB: Why, yes? This is my question.
CARLSON: Because those are covered and because I have spent my life talking to people who run countries in various countries and have concluded the following. That every leader kills people, including my leader. Every leader kills people, some kill more than others. Leadership requires killing people, sorry, that’s why I wouldn’t want to be a leader. That press restriction is universal in the United States, I know because I’ve lived it. Ask my former – I’ve had a lot of jobs. And I’ve done this for 34 years and I know how it works and there’s more censorship in Russia than there is in the United States but there is a great deal in the United States. And so at a certain point, it’s like people can decide whether they think, what countries they think are better, what systems they think are better. I just want to know what he thinks, that was the whole point.