Tucker Carlson Is No ‘Traitor’ for Doing Journalism

Published

1 year ago

February 8, 2024

admin

Is a journalist’s trip to a hostile country “treason?” Should that journalist be barred from the U.S. on the chance that he’s performing an act of journalism, such as interviewing a foreign leader? The answer to both of these questions, for anybody who isn’t a jackass, is “no.” And yet Tucker Carlson’s presence in Russia has excited a frenzy of speculation and protest because of the controversial talking head’s populist politics.

The Rattler is a weekly newsletter from J.D. Tuccille. If you care about government overreach and tangible threats to everyday liberty, this is for you. Email(Required) EmailThis field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. Submit

Δ Media Treason?

“Perhaps we need a total and complete shutdown of Tucker Carlson re-entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on,” The Bulwark editor-at-large Bill Kristol snarked on reports that Carlson was in Moscow.

Former GOP congressman Adam Kinzinger went further, calling Carlson a “traitor” for visiting Russia’s capital amidst rumors that the journalist traveled to interview Russia’s thuggish President Vladimir Putin. Carlson later confirmed the rumors on X (formerly Twitter.)

“If so, Mr. Carlson would be the first American media figure to land a formal interview with the Russian leader since he invaded Ukraine nearly two years ago,” observed Jim Rutenberg and Milana Mazaeva for The New York Times. Rutenberg and Mazaeva noted that Russia’s own journalists face tight strictures, and that “Mr. Putin’s government has been holding Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter, in jail for nearly a year.” Journalism Is What Journalists Do

This is entirely true. But it’s not at all uncommon for journalists to interview foreign political leaders, including complete scumbags. Gathering information is core to the job and powerful figures on the world stage are and should be of interest to the publicespecially if they pose potential or real danger.

Vladimir Putin was the subject of an interview with Barbara Walters back in 2001. In 2015, Reuters interviewed China’s President (probably for life) Xi Jinping about his intentions on the world stage. Orla Guerin of the BBC spoke with Venezuela’s dictatorial Nicols Maduro in 2019. Last October, in the wake of Hamas’s bloody attack on Israel, The Economist’s Zanny Minton Beddoes sat down with Moussa Abu Marzouk, a senior official with the terrorist group, to try to understand his thinking.

That interview with Marzouk may come the closest to a present-day interview with Putin because of the context of Hamas’s attack and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. For most Americans, both figures are wildly unsympathetic. But it’s not the job of journalists to speak only with popular figures who give their audiences warm and fuzzy feelings. They’re supposed to gather news about everybody, including terrible people who are responsible for war, tyranny, and murder. And there’s a real value in understanding the motives and goals of people who play an important role on the world stage.

“How does Hamas justify the atrocities committed in Israel?” The Economist wrote of the Marzouk interview. “Why has it done this? What does it plan to do with the hostages?”

Putin plays a comparatively bigger role on the world stage, controlling an entire major country and its nuclear arsenal. Some insights into where he’s coming from could be helpful.

“I can’t believe the idea that @TuckerCarlson is a traitor for doing an interview with anyone is taken seriously. Are people two years old? I remember when it was destination television if U.S. anchors scored interviews with the Ayatollah or a Soviet premier,” journalist Matt Taibbi, who has built an independent presence on Substack, pointed out in an effort to bring a measure of sanity to the discussion.

Of course, Tucker Carlson raises eyebrows because he’s a nationalist and populist and seen as, among other unpleasant things, overly sympathetic to Putin’s government. Washington Post media critic Erik Wemple called Carlson a “Putin apologist” while MSNBC’s Alex Wagner referred to him as “one of the biggest cheerleaders for Russia.”

Honestly, Russian officials seem to agree; they’ve highlighted his coverage for years as representing a relatively friendly voice in the United States media. Everybody Gets To Speak

But that doesn’t matter. In free societies, people have the right to embrace whatever political views they like, whether in their personal lives or their professional careers. Those views are certainly fair game for criticism and, the more public the figure, the more legitimate a target they are for high-profile takedowns. But a person’s ideology is neither a ticket to ride nor a bar to entry for trying to make a living as a journalistor at least it shouldn’t be if we’re going to have anything resembling free media.

Having been fired from Fox News, Carlson built a following on X. Whatever anybody may think of the man and his viewsI’m not a fanit’s to all of our benefit that there’s space for diverse viewpoints espoused by people who don’t need permission from gatekeepers to gather and report news, comment on events, and build followings. The more people engaging in journalism with whom we disagree, especially if we disagree with them in different ways, the more likely that media is uncensored, healthy, and making a fair attempt at getting the job done. If we agree with a few voices, too, so much the better. Not the First Dictator Stan To Do Journalism

Besides, if Tucker Carlson is sympathetic to a foreign dictator, or authoritarian in his beliefs, or just plain politically repulsive, he wouldn’t exactly be breaking new ground among journalists. The excellent 2019 film Mr. Jones documented Gareth Jones’s uphill struggle to reveal the truth of the Holodomor, the deliberate famine inflicted on the Ukrainian people by Joseph Stalin’s communist regime. Among the obstacles to reporting the story were pro-Soviet journalists such as Walter Duranty of The New York Times, who won a Pulitzer Prize for propagandizing on behalf of Stalin.

No doubt, Carlson sees himself in the Jones truth-teller role here, though he may well be more of a Duranty stand-in. But that’s a verdict to be rendered by public debate and the passage of time, not by a mob screaming “traitor” at somebody who wanders from the ideological reservation.

And there’s certainly nothing to be gained by speculating about barring a journalist from the country because you disagree with his views or his work. Even if we allow that Kristol is just joking, he’s written some terrible things himselfcheerleading for the Iraq War comes to mindthat invite harsh judgment.

But Kristol, like Carlson, shouldn’t be barred from the country or from journalism for wrongthink. A free society and a free press demand that all voices be welcome to speak. Then, once they’ve spoken, they’re fair game for whatever heat is directed their way.

Sports

Stars fire coach DeBoer after West final loss

Published

59 mins ago

June 6, 2025

admin

Stars fire coach DeBoer after West final loss

Associated Press

Jun 6, 2025, 10:50 AM ET

DALLAS — Dallas Stars coach Pete DeBoer was fired Friday after three seasons with the team, getting to the Western Conference final each time but never advancing past that for a shot at the Stanley Cup.

General manager Jim Nill made the move less than a week since the Stars ended their season in a 6-3 loss at home to Edmonton in Game 5 of the West final.

Business

Trade war: US hiring slows but employment resilient

Published

59 mins ago

June 6, 2025

admin

Trade war: US hiring slows but employment resilient

The US economy saw a slowdown in hiring but no leap in unemployment last month as the impact of Donald Trump’s trade war continues to play out.

Official data, which strips out the effects of seasonal workers, showed 139,000 net new jobs were created during May.

Market analysts and economists had expected a figure of 130,000 – down on the 147,000 for April.

The unemployment rate remained at 4.2% and hourly pay rates rose.

Money latest: House price dip expected to be temporary

The figures were released as the health of the US economy continues to attract close scrutiny amid ongoing fears of a recession risk in the world’s largest economy due to the effects of the US president’s trade war.

Unlike most developed economies, such a downturn is not determined by two consecutive quarters of negative growth, but by a committee of respected economists.

It’s known as the Business Cycle Dating Committee.

It uses employment data, as well as official growth figures, to rule on the status of the economy.

The threat of tariffs, and early salvoes of, the Trump administration’s protectionist agenda were blamed for a sharp slowdown in growth over the first three months of the year.

Economists have found it hard to predict official data due to the on-off, and often chaotic, nature of tariff implementation.

As such, all official figures are keenly awaited for news of the trade war’s impact on the domestic economy.

Other data this week showed a record 20% plunge in US imports during April.

Next week sees the release of inflation figures – the best measure of whether import duty price increases are working their way through the supply chain and harming the spending power of businesses and consumers.

It’s a key piece of information for the US central bank.

It has paused interest rate cuts, to the fury of the president, over trade war uncertainty.

A forecast by the Paris-based OECD this week highlighted the chance of consumer price inflation rising above 4% later in the year.

It currently stands at an annual rate of 2.3%.

Fears of a US recession and trade war uncertainty have combined most recently with increasing market concerns about the sustainability of US debt, given Mr Trump’s tax cut and spending plans.

US stock markets are largely flat on the year while the dollar index, which measures the greenback against six other major currencies, is down 9% this year and on course for its worst annual performance since 2017.

European stocks entered positive territory in a small nod to the employment data, while US futures showed a similar trend.

The dollar rose slightly.

The reaction was likely muted because the data was well within expectations and seen as positive.

Commenting on the figures Nicholas Hyett, investment manager at Wealth Club, said: “The US labour market has shrugged off the tariff uncertainty that rocked global stock and bond markets in April and May.

“While the Federal government has continued to shed a small number of jobs, the wider economy has more than made up the difference, with the US adding slightly more jobs than expected in May. Wage growth also came in higher than expected – suggesting the economy is in rude health.

“That will be taken as vindication by the Trump administration – which has been clear that the tariffs are aimed squarely at supporting Main Street rather than pleasing Wall Street.

“Less positive from the White House’s point of view is that a strong economy and rising wages gives the Federal Reserve less reason to cut interest rates – pushing yields a touch higher and making the fiscal splurge built into Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” that bit more expensive.

“With rate cuts looking less likely, Fed Chair Jay Powell can expect to remain firmly in the president’s firing line once the spat with Musk is over.”

US

Trump and Musk’s extraordinary spat minute-by-minute

Published

59 mins ago

June 6, 2025

admin

Trump and Musk's extraordinary spat minute-by-minute

They were once the best of friends, but last night that came to an end – and it all unfolded online as people across the world looked on… and retweeted.

Tension between Elon Musk and Donald Trump had been building for several days after the SpaceX billionaire criticised the US president’s signature tax bill.

While initially it remained cordial, the president suggested his former backer and adviser missed being in government and suffered from “Trump derangement syndrome”, leading to a sudden and dramatic deterioration in relations between the pair.

They have two of the largest platforms in the world, and last night, they turned them on each other. While much of Europe slept through it, here is every insult and barb as it happened… so far.

6.39pm: ‘Big ugly spending bill’

Musk tells Trump his “big ugly spending bill” will make the economic situation worse.

Five minutes later he retweets a video in which he says the bill will increase the US’s deficit to $2.5 trillion (£1.85 trn).

AT 6.48pm he shares a post about the bill’s popularity, simply saying: “Kill bill”.

👉 Follow Trump100 on your podcast app 👈

6.49pm: Trump’s ‘body double’

Earlier in the evening, Musk reshares a series of posts (dating back to 2012) from Trump’s X account, including ones saying deficits should not be allowed.

He then reshares a post of someone praising him, adding: “Where is the man who wrote these words? Was he replaced by a body double!?”

He then retweets a meme, making light of Trump’s plan, which links to a poll he had run the previous day.

7.23pm: Back to the bill

Musk starts tweeting about the “big ugly spending bill” again, saying members of Congress didn’t even have time to read it before it was passed.

He continues to tweet about this for most of the night, including accusing the government of “spending America into bankruptcy”.

7.30pm: Who is right?

Musk retweets a poll that shows 76% of 1.5 million voters think he is right in his spat with the president.

7.37pm: Elon was ‘wearing thin’

Trump shares a post on his Truth Social site that accuses Musk of going “crazy” after the president took away his EV mandate.

Musk responds by sharing a number of former interviews, including a video from 2021 where he says the industry does not need EV tax credits.

Trump then shares a post in which he writes the “easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts”.

8.10pm: The Epstein ‘bomb’

Arguably the largest moment in their fight – Musk accuses Trump of being in the Epstein files.

He gives no evidence for the claim. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt dismisses the comment.

9.06pm: Musk ‘turning against me’

Trump says he doesn’t mind Musk turning against him, but adds that “he should have done so months ago”.

He then goes on to voice continued support for his bill, calling it “one of the greatest bills ever presented to Congress”.

9.09pm: Decommissioning Dragon

Following Trump’s statement about terminating his contracts, Musk tweets: “In light of the President’s statement about cancellation of my government contracts, @SpaceX will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately.”

Dragon is the only US spacecraft available to deliver crew to and from the International Space Station.

Two minutes later he retweets a post calling on Trump to be impeached, adding simply: “Yes.”

9.29pm: Trump’s tariffs

Musk hits out at Trump’s tariffs, resharing a tweet from someone who called them “stupid”.

“The Trump tariffs will cause a recession in the second half of this year,” he adds.

For the rest of the evening, Musk reshares posts from other users, often adding a laughing face emoji, or the occasional comment, including the words: “If America goes broke, nothing else matters.”

2.20am: Musk says he won’t decommission spacecraft

Just after 2am, an account with a few hundred followers tweets Musk: “This is a shame this back and forth. You are both better than this. Cool off and take a step back for a couple days.”