Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson may be interviewing Russian President Vladimir Putin as the US citizen is on his first visit to the Eurasian country that has been at the loggerheads with the West on its military campaign against Ukraine.
According to Russian media, Tucker Carlson is currently in Moscow and there are speculations that he may interview Vladimir Putin but there is no confirmation from his side.
Without denying the possibility of face-to-face interaction with the Russian leader, he replied to a question about the interview by saying: "We’ll see."
His remarks were reported by a Russian newspaper Izvestia Monday as he was approached by a fan in a hotel in the Russian capital.
"I wanted to talk to [people] and walk around and see how it was doing. And it was doing very well," Carlson said who now hosts his program on X — formerly called Twitter.
Pictures and videos surfaced on social media of Carlson in Moscow. He had earlier expressed his desire to sit with the Russian President and claimed that his efforts to arrange such a meeting years ago made him "a target of the US government surveillance".
Independent Presidential candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. while speaking in favour of the journalist said that "[Tucker Carlson] has every right to interview Putin." He also said that people in the US "need more transparency instead of less."
The Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov while responding to the question of an interview with Putin said: "We can hardly be expected to provide information on the movement of foreign journalists," adding that "many foreign journalists come to Russia every day, many continue to work here, and we welcome this."
"We have nothing to announce in terms of the president’s interviews to foreign media," the spokesperson added.
A Telegram channel The Mash — which is said to be associated with Russia — released a photo of the 54-year-old journalist Saturday showing him attending the Spartacus ballet at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow.
Carlson abruptly left Fox News in April last year where he gained prominence.
He rose to fame in Russia when he expressed his views repeatedly about Moscow’s role in US elections when Donald Trump was elected.
The journalist has also been criticising the West for its support of Ukraine, blaming the allies of his country for the Russian military operation in Ukraine that commenced in February 2022. He has also been critical of the Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky.