Tucker So Mad Everybody Calling Him Putin's Sidepiece, Just Because He Is

He's getting bitter, y'all.

What's a boy like Tucker Carlson to do when he finds out the Kremlin is sending out memos to its state-run TV organs, telling them to make sure they play lots of Tucker, since his Russian propaganda is as good as anything the Russians can put together?

 He should get mad at everybody who says he is on Putin's side! He should get mad at Mitt Romney! He should get mad at Mitt Romney for saying he's on Putin's side!

And so he did.

But first he had to engage in some good old bad-faith arguing/lying.

In the segment below, Tucker refers to an aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy saying several days ago that Ukraine may be open to discussing Russia's demand for "neutrality," i.e., a pledge to never join NATO or the European Union. (This is one of four demands Russia has for Ukraine, in exchange for stopping the indiscriminate slaughtering.) Tucker says everybody's ignored Zelenskyy saying that, which is funny, considering how easily we found it.

Well surprise, Tucker thinks Ukraine promising never to join NATO would be a great idea. (Just like Putin thinks!) He correctly points out that Ukraine "wasn't on the cusp of joining anyway." He even correctly points out that Putin didn't invade Ukraine over NATO, saying Putin instead invaded because "he's bad, end of conversation." (We guess last night was one of those semi-regular shows where Tucker feels it's necessary to make some sound bites of himself doing the bare minimum to be on the side of the victims and not the abusers. Also Putin invaded Ukraine because he's trying to reconstitute the Soviet Union in his own image.)

But Tucker gets real mad that when somebody says Zelenskyy should accept any or all of Putin's demands to end the war, they get accused of being a "tool of Russian propaganda." Tucker says that because Zelenskyy acknowledged that Putin cares about NATO expansion very much, that must mean Zelenskyy is a Russian tool too!

You betcha.

And then the bellyaching really began. Because Tucker knows an innocent man who's being accused of being a tool of Russian propaganda, and that innocent man's name is Tucker.

"Let's just say we've lived it," he says bitterly.

TUCKER CARLSON: We have made the point repeatedly that forcing Ukraine into NATO will in no way serve the interests of the United States, and in fact would hurt us here in ways from which we will never recover.

Wow, guess we missed those episodes where Tucker proved that Ukraine earning membership in NATO would hurt "America."

TUCKER: And by the way, talking about it doesn't seem to have helped Ukraine either. For saying that — and that's all we've said — here's the reaction we've received, and this is just a small selection. We could do a full hour on it, but here's a clip.

SPOILER: That is not "all he's said." Here is some "all he's said." There's more "all he's said" at the bottom of this post!

At this point, Tucker played a clip of lots of pundits on TV calling Tucker the leader of the "Putin wing of the Republican Party" and saying people like him are "unabashed fans" of Putin. There's even Mitt Romney talking about what a piece of shit Putin is, and saying it's "almost treasonous" to side with Putin, the way Tucker is.

At which point it was time for Tucker to put the Confused Golden Retriever filter over his face and ask:

TUCKER: "Almost treasonous, siding with Putin." Who is siding with Putin? I haven't seen anybody do that.

No mirrors in studio?

TUCKER: I have seen a few people try to side with the United States, and that, says Mitt Romney, a man who got four deferments to keep himself out of the Vietnam War, that is almost treasonous.

OK now follow the bouncing white nationalist here, because Tucker 'bout to make an argument .

When he says he's seen people trying to "side with the United States," he's pointing out what he thinks is just some real hypocrisy from folks like Romney, who accuse him of being unpatriotic when he's the only one out here defending REAL Americans.

Read this quote and see how many times the word "white" appears between the lines:

TUCKER: [T]he very same people who spent the last, say, two years telling us that this country, our country, is inherently sinful and racist and disgusting and born in iniquity, those same people,the ones who lecture you about how there's something inherently wrong with you if you live here or were born here,those same people have been the very quickest, the very first to whip around and accuse anyone who wants to save the United States from yet another pointless war, a war that they would never fight in and nor would their children, accuse those people of being unpatriotic. Well you don't love America enough, says the man who thinks America ... is racist .

We helpfully bolded the part where he was obviously alluding to real white Americans, in case you missed it. Which was unnecessary, because he came out and said it just afterward when he played a clip of Romney marching with Black Lives Matter, and, raising his giggly voice into a roar, inveighed against people who say America is a "WHITE SUPREMACIST HELLHOLE!"

So it's interesting to see how Tucker is tying his foreign policy Putin adoration together with his domestic policy white nationalism. It's almost like these two things are part of the same worldview.

But really, how dare we say Tucker is on Putin's side? Must we reprint Tucker's soliloquy to Putin just as Putin's invasion was beginning?

"[I]t might be worth asking yourselves since it is getting really serious, what is this really about? Why do I hate Putin so much?

Has Putin ever called me a racist? Has he threatened to get me fired for disagreeing with him? Has he shipped every middle-class job in my town to Russia? Did he manufacture a worldwide pandemic that wrecked my business and kept me indoors for two years? Is he teaching my children to embrace racial discrimination? Is he making fentanyl? Is he trying to snuff out Christianity? Does he eat dogs?"

Right. And then Putin started murdering people in children's hospitals and innocent families trying to flee and disappearing journalists in Russia who dare to tell the truth about what's really happening.

But yeah it's a real fuckin' mystery why everybody calls Tucker Putin's overgrown twink-past-its-sell-by-date sidepiece.

A real fuckin' mystery.

[ Media Matters ]

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