Tucker Carlson revealed on Tuesday that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was ordered by the U.S. State Department to refuse an interview with the former Fox News anchor over the state of the ongoing Ukraine-Russia conflict.
In a video posted to X announcing an upcoming wide-ranging interview with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Carlson said he learned the U.S. government severed its back-channel communications with Russia as geopolitical tensions mount, and so he traveled to Moscow to get Russia and Ukraine’s perspective since the corporate media is withholding crucial information from the American people.
“We felt there must be someone behind the scenes in Washington working to make sure that this conflict doesn’t become a nuclear holocaust,” Carlson said. “But we found out that no, in fact, there was nobody. Tony Blinken, the current Secretary of State, cut off all contact between the U.S. and Russian governments. There is no back channel. There is no conversation. There hasn’t been for more than two years. That’s shocking.”
We’re back in Moscow. Here’s why. pic.twitter.com/7FfBhcaIUu
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) December 3, 2024
“Meanwhile, most Americans have no access to any perspective other than that granted to them by NBC News and The New York Times. They don’t know how close we are. They don’t know the Russian perspective.”
“We’ve also tried for over a year to get an interview with Zelensky, the President of Ukraine,” Tucker continued. “We’ve attacked that from a bunch of different angles, we’ve spoken to a lot different people around him, had dinner with them. We’ve been in talks continuously, and those efforts have been thwarted by the U.S. government.”
Carlson noted the double standard of Zelensky being allowed to speak to CNN but not independent journalists like him.
“The American embassy in Kyiv, which our tax dollars pay for, told the Zelensky government, ‘No, you may not do the interview.’ You can talk to CNN, you can’t talk to us. So we’ve been unable to speak to him,” Carlson said.
Carlson explained that he asked Lavrov, “Where exactly are we? Are we headed toward an unprecedented conflict between Russia and the United States?”
“Is there any way to peel Russia back from the East, from the sphere of China, back into the West?” he asked. “Is that alliance permanent? And does the election of Donald Trump mean an end to this war which is reshaping the world, the U.S. economy, the global economy, and risking the life of every person on this planet? Is that possible?”
Tucker had already interviewed Russian President Vladimir Putin in February, which was roundly criticized by the Washington establishment.
In sum, the outgoing Biden administration cut all back-channel contact with Russia amid rising tensions following Joe Biden’s approval of Ukraine’s use of long-range U.S.-made missiles against Russia, and specifically ordered Zelensky, the president of a so-called sovereign nation, not to provide an independent journalist any insight into his country’s current stance on the conflict.
Carlson’s interview with Lavrov will be added here when it becomes available.