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It was not like an interview with a typical politician, which is perhaps not a surprise, but interesting nonetheless. He was happy to acknowledge when he didn't

It was not like an interview with a typical politician, which is perhaps not a surprise, but interesting nonetheless. He was happy to acknowledge when he didn't know things, gave numerous interesting insights in conversations he has had with other world leaders - while actively avoiding betraying their trust of confidence. He also displayed a rather encyclopedic knowledge of history which I found fascinating as a history buff myself. In fact most of the section about Ukraine was largely a lengthy history lesson, including a reasonable overview of how people like Bandera came to be national heroes in Ukraine. I suppose seeing a world leader who actually seems intelligent and "real" was just something novel. The political personality all Western politicians use now a days is something I find irritating. Giving focus tested answers, or no answers at all, while speaking endlessly nonetheless. Even on topics he clearly found irritating, he didn't try to spin things. E.g. - on the Wallstreet Journal guy, he simply focused on the fact that he broke Russian law, and wanted to trade him for a Russian citizen. Basically it felt much more like a diplomat speaking to another diplomat instead of a politician trying to give you the answers he thinks you want to hear, regardless of what he actually thinks.

actionfromafar 3y ago
It doesn't sound like an interview at all, at least not a hard hitting interview with tough questions. More like a promotional tour for a new book or something.
- somenameforme 3y ago
  Well it wasn't a "trap" interview, if that's what you mean. It also wasn't a "pr tour" type interview of the sort we have repeatedly given Zelensky. I think the thing it reminded me most of was the old school days of interviews with people like Larry King.
  - actionfromafar 3y ago
    Well, Larry King asked pretty tough questions when he interviewed Putin.
    - somenameforme 3y ago
      Yeah I was able to find a transcript of his interview with Putin [1] but oddly it does not seem to exist in YouTube in video format unfortunately. It's been years since I've watched him, but skimming through that transcript I can still hear his voice! And yeah, I do think the two interviews are extremely similar in content. He asks significant and poignant questions, without fishing for trap stuff. So e.g. he asks most obviously why Putin invaded, what he even means by 'denazification', why he thinks Britain wanted Ukraine to fight, whether China may end up dominating (and thus undermining the point of) BRICS, the risks and possibilities around potential ongoing escalation, and other such questions. Whenever I hear "hard hitting" in modern times, I just think of a journalist digging up some random dirt to try to shock the interviewee with, using argumentative fallacies like strawmen, and just generally doing whatever they can to agitate the interviewee and get some sensational headline or emotional response. And there was none of that. [1] - http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/21558 http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/21558
      - belter 3y ago
        > Whenever I hear "hard hitting" in modern times, I just think of a journalist digging up some random dirt to try to shock the interviewee with, using argumentative fallacies like strawmen, and just generally doing whatever they can to agitate the interviewee and get some sensational headline or emotional response. And there was none of that. > And there was none of that. Yeap, no questions on Bucha and who did such a well documented atrocities... Yeap, no questions on how people fall from windows, or get poisoned so easily in Russia and the Russian chemical attacks in the UK... Yeap, no questions on the 20,000 Ukrainian children kidnapped into Russia... Yeah none of that. An excellent articulated piece of propaganda.
        khzw8yyy 3y ago
        On the other hand, we've already heard all these stories and they are clearly very sticky. Getting a different angle was at least new.
  - lispm 3y ago
    Putin has invaded the Ukraine. This "interview" was only a platform for him to explain his propaganda version of his motives, based on his skewed version of history. None of that was questioned. The reality is that he failed to conquer Ukraine in a few days, as he planned initially, and now is in a bloody war where he sacrifices the lives of hundreds of russians per day for his own personal goals. His troops kills and destroys in the Ukraine. His invasion is a huge catastrophe for him, for russia and especially for the ukraine. There is no justification for this and it can't be found in history.
- khzw8yyy 3y ago
  I think it highlights differences in American and Russian communication style very well. Even with the softball questions, Carlson kept trying to steer the conversation towards a series of questions and answers and seemed a bit annoyed by the long-winded stories. Putin kept saying he'll answer the question but finish his explanation first. To an American this kind of communication seems like evasion and filibustering. To a Russian not getting into the details feels shallow and rash. Personally, I've struggled mightily with writing in American business style. You know, executive summary front and center, any details relegated to an appendix. A much more natural style for me is storytelling - linear, chronological, with details inline.
amarant 3y ago
Not to contradict you, but he did also say a few quite annoyingly incorrect things, like claiming it was the fault of Poland that they were invaded by Hitler. Also the point where Tucker reached the conclusion that "only an idiot would believe that Russia is an expansionist power" sounds a lot like slurping sounds around Putin's private parts to me(Russia has invaded at least 3 neighbouring countries in the last decade) The Hitler/Poland observation especially makes me think perhaps Putin would like to call it the Second World Special Military Operation, which isn't all that far from calling the Ukraine war by any other name than a war.
- somenameforme 3y ago
  Tucker said nothing of the sort, nor did Putin claim it was Poland's fault they were invaded. Putin did, however, explain what Hitler's motivation was, The Free City of Danzig. [1] It was an area primarily populated with German peoples but 'granted' to Poland after WW1. Germany wanted it back, Poland refused, and eventually Germany ended up invading to get it back. This doesn't mean Germany's actions were right, nor Poland's wrong. It simply is what it is, and is obviously an extremely important part of history. There's a transcript of the interview here [2]. It looks like an auto-translated version of the Russian transcript, and a rather terrible one at that. So I would take it with a grain of salt, but it should at least be a decent way of finding whichever topic you're interested in and correlating that against its location in the actual interview. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_City_of_Danzig https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_City_of_Danzig [2] - https://voxday.net/2024/02/09/tucker-putin-interview-complete-transcript/ https://voxday.net/2024/02/09/tucker-putin-interview-complet...
  - mopsi 3y ago
    > Putin did, however, explain what Hitler's motivation was, The Free City of Danzig. That was an excuse, not motivation. Hitler was motivated by theories of racial superiority, which he immediately began carrying out in Poland after invading the country and dividing it with the USSR, which had attacked Poland from the east in a supporting action (they even held a joint victory parade). Hitler sought to exterminate all Jews and most Poles living in Poland and turn the few remaining Poles into a slave race serving German settlers, who were given Polish farms and businesses. Hitler managed to murder roughly 3 million Polish Jews and 3 million Poles before finding a sorry end in a petrol-filled ditch somewhere in Berlin. Systemic extermination of people living in Poland had been planned for years in advance and started right on the first days of the invasion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligenzaktion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligenzaktion Russian theories of superiority, exceptionalism and Russki mir are eerily similar to the German ideas of superiority and Lebensraum in both theory and practice: Operation Tannenberg (German: Unternehmen Tannenberg) was a codename for one of the anti-Polish extermination actions by Nazi Germany. The shootings were conducted with the use of a proscription list (Sonderfahndungsbuch Polen) targeting Poland’s elite, compiled by the Gestapo in the two years before the invasion of Poland. The secret lists identified more than 61,000 members of the Polish elite: activists, intelligentsia, scholars, clergy, actors, former officers and others, who were to be interned or shot. Members of the German minority living in Poland assisted in preparing the lists. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Tannenberg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Tannenberg USSR did the same in the parts of Poland they invaded: The Katyn massacre was a series of mass executions of nearly 22,000 Polish military officers and intelligentsia prisoners of war carried out by the Soviet Union, specifically the NKVD ("People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs", the Soviet secret police) in April and May 1940. /---/ The order to execute captive members of the Polish officer corps was secretly issued by the Soviet Politburo led by Joseph Stalin. Of the total killed, about 8,000 were officers imprisoned during the 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland, another 6,000 were police officers, and the remaining 8,000 were Polish intelligentsia the Soviets deemed to be "intelligence agents and gendarmes, spies and saboteurs, former landowners, factory owners and officials". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre And the same thing is going on in occupied parts of Ukraine right now: In a deliberate, widespread campaign, Russian forces systematically targeted influential Ukrainians, nationally and locally, to neutralize resistance through detention, torture and executions, an Associated Press investigation has found. The strategy appears to violate the laws of war and could help build a case for genocide. Russian troops hunted Ukrainians by name, using lists prepared with the help of their intelligence services. In the crosshairs were government officials, journalists, activists, veterans, religious leaders and lawyers. /---/ The pattern was similar across the country, according to testimonies AP collected from occupied and formerly occupied territories around Kyiv, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Chernihiv and Donetsk regions. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/russians-hunt-down-ukrainians-on-lists/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/russians-hunt-dow...
lispm 3y ago
That's a very strange, view given that the history was mostly wrong. Putin is not a typical politician, he is an ex- intelligence service ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Putin#KGB_career https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Putin#KGB_career ) guy who got to power and made Russia his own authoritarian ruled country.

actionfromafar 3y ago

It doesn't sound like an interview at all, at least not a hard hitting interview with tough questions. More like a promotional tour for a new book or something.

somenameforme 3y ago
Well it wasn't a "trap" interview, if that's what you mean. It also wasn't a "pr tour" type interview of the sort we have repeatedly given Zelensky. I think the thing it reminded me most of was the old school days of interviews with people like Larry King.
- actionfromafar 3y ago
  Well, Larry King asked pretty tough questions when he interviewed Putin.
  - somenameforme 3y ago
    Yeah I was able to find a transcript of his interview with Putin [1] but oddly it does not seem to exist in YouTube in video format unfortunately. It's been years since I've watched him, but skimming through that transcript I can still hear his voice! And yeah, I do think the two interviews are extremely similar in content. He asks significant and poignant questions, without fishing for trap stuff. So e.g. he asks most obviously why Putin invaded, what he even means by 'denazification', why he thinks Britain wanted Ukraine to fight, whether China may end up dominating (and thus undermining the point of) BRICS, the risks and possibilities around potential ongoing escalation, and other such questions. Whenever I hear "hard hitting" in modern times, I just think of a journalist digging up some random dirt to try to shock the interviewee with, using argumentative fallacies like strawmen, and just generally doing whatever they can to agitate the interviewee and get some sensational headline or emotional response. And there was none of that. [1] - http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/21558 http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/21558
    - belter 3y ago
      > Whenever I hear "hard hitting" in modern times, I just think of a journalist digging up some random dirt to try to shock the interviewee with, using argumentative fallacies like strawmen, and just generally doing whatever they can to agitate the interviewee and get some sensational headline or emotional response. And there was none of that. > And there was none of that. Yeap, no questions on Bucha and who did such a well documented atrocities... Yeap, no questions on how people fall from windows, or get poisoned so easily in Russia and the Russian chemical attacks in the UK... Yeap, no questions on the 20,000 Ukrainian children kidnapped into Russia... Yeah none of that. An excellent articulated piece of propaganda.
      - khzw8yyy 3y ago
        On the other hand, we've already heard all these stories and they are clearly very sticky. Getting a different angle was at least new.
- lispm 3y ago
  Putin has invaded the Ukraine. This "interview" was only a platform for him to explain his propaganda version of his motives, based on his skewed version of history. None of that was questioned. The reality is that he failed to conquer Ukraine in a few days, as he planned initially, and now is in a bloody war where he sacrifices the lives of hundreds of russians per day for his own personal goals. His troops kills and destroys in the Ukraine. His invasion is a huge catastrophe for him, for russia and especially for the ukraine. There is no justification for this and it can't be found in history.
khzw8yyy 3y ago
I think it highlights differences in American and Russian communication style very well. Even with the softball questions, Carlson kept trying to steer the conversation towards a series of questions and answers and seemed a bit annoyed by the long-winded stories. Putin kept saying he'll answer the question but finish his explanation first. To an American this kind of communication seems like evasion and filibustering. To a Russian not getting into the details feels shallow and rash. Personally, I've struggled mightily with writing in American business style. You know, executive summary front and center, any details relegated to an appendix. A much more natural style for me is storytelling - linear, chronological, with details inline.

amarant 3y ago

Not to contradict you, but he did also say a few quite annoyingly incorrect things, like claiming it was the fault of Poland that they were invaded by Hitler. Also the point where Tucker reached the conclusion that "only an idiot would believe that Russia is an expansionist power" sounds a lot like slurping sounds around Putin's private parts to me(Russia has invaded at least 3 neighbouring countries in the last decade) The Hitler/Poland observation especially makes me think perhaps Putin would like to call it the Second World Special Military Operation, which isn't all that far from calling the Ukraine war by any other name than a war.

somenameforme 3y ago
Tucker said nothing of the sort, nor did Putin claim it was Poland's fault they were invaded. Putin did, however, explain what Hitler's motivation was, The Free City of Danzig. [1] It was an area primarily populated with German peoples but 'granted' to Poland after WW1. Germany wanted it back, Poland refused, and eventually Germany ended up invading to get it back. This doesn't mean Germany's actions were right, nor Poland's wrong. It simply is what it is, and is obviously an extremely important part of history. There's a transcript of the interview here [2]. It looks like an auto-translated version of the Russian transcript, and a rather terrible one at that. So I would take it with a grain of salt, but it should at least be a decent way of finding whichever topic you're interested in and correlating that against its location in the actual interview. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_City_of_Danzig https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_City_of_Danzig [2] - https://voxday.net/2024/02/09/tucker-putin-interview-complete-transcript/ https://voxday.net/2024/02/09/tucker-putin-interview-complet...
- mopsi 3y ago
  > Putin did, however, explain what Hitler's motivation was, The Free City of Danzig. That was an excuse, not motivation. Hitler was motivated by theories of racial superiority, which he immediately began carrying out in Poland after invading the country and dividing it with the USSR, which had attacked Poland from the east in a supporting action (they even held a joint victory parade). Hitler sought to exterminate all Jews and most Poles living in Poland and turn the few remaining Poles into a slave race serving German settlers, who were given Polish farms and businesses. Hitler managed to murder roughly 3 million Polish Jews and 3 million Poles before finding a sorry end in a petrol-filled ditch somewhere in Berlin. Systemic extermination of people living in Poland had been planned for years in advance and started right on the first days of the invasion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligenzaktion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligenzaktion Russian theories of superiority, exceptionalism and Russki mir are eerily similar to the German ideas of superiority and Lebensraum in both theory and practice: Operation Tannenberg (German: Unternehmen Tannenberg) was a codename for one of the anti-Polish extermination actions by Nazi Germany. The shootings were conducted with the use of a proscription list (Sonderfahndungsbuch Polen) targeting Poland’s elite, compiled by the Gestapo in the two years before the invasion of Poland. The secret lists identified more than 61,000 members of the Polish elite: activists, intelligentsia, scholars, clergy, actors, former officers and others, who were to be interned or shot. Members of the German minority living in Poland assisted in preparing the lists. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Tannenberg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Tannenberg USSR did the same in the parts of Poland they invaded: The Katyn massacre was a series of mass executions of nearly 22,000 Polish military officers and intelligentsia prisoners of war carried out by the Soviet Union, specifically the NKVD ("People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs", the Soviet secret police) in April and May 1940. /---/ The order to execute captive members of the Polish officer corps was secretly issued by the Soviet Politburo led by Joseph Stalin. Of the total killed, about 8,000 were officers imprisoned during the 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland, another 6,000 were police officers, and the remaining 8,000 were Polish intelligentsia the Soviets deemed to be "intelligence agents and gendarmes, spies and saboteurs, former landowners, factory owners and officials". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre And the same thing is going on in occupied parts of Ukraine right now: In a deliberate, widespread campaign, Russian forces systematically targeted influential Ukrainians, nationally and locally, to neutralize resistance through detention, torture and executions, an Associated Press investigation has found. The strategy appears to violate the laws of war and could help build a case for genocide. Russian troops hunted Ukrainians by name, using lists prepared with the help of their intelligence services. In the crosshairs were government officials, journalists, activists, veterans, religious leaders and lawyers. /---/ The pattern was similar across the country, according to testimonies AP collected from occupied and formerly occupied territories around Kyiv, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Chernihiv and Donetsk regions. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/russians-hunt-down-ukrainians-on-lists/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/russians-hunt-dow...

lispm 3y ago

That's a very strange, view given that the history was mostly wrong. Putin is not a typical politician, he is an ex- intelligence service ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Putin#KGB_career https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Putin#KGB_career ) guy who got to power and made Russia his own authoritarian ruled country.