Tucker Carlson Is No ‘Traitor’ for Doing Journalism

Published

1 year ago

February 8, 2024

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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.

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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.

Politics

Wes Streeting denies Labour has made ‘mistakes’ with ‘unpopular’ policies despite poor local election results

Published

3 hours ago

May 4, 2025

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Wes Streeting denies Labour has made 'mistakes' with 'unpopular' policies despite poor local election results

Health Secretary Wes Streeting has defended “unpopular” policies such as the cut to the winter fuel allowance despite Labour’s poor performance at the local elections.

Mr Streeting denied the government had made any mistakes when asked whether the policy was partly to blame for the party losing 189 council seats less than a year since the General Election.

Since coming into government last July, Labour has enacted a number of policies that were not in its manifesto.

These include means-testing winter fuel payments for pensioners, increasing employers’ national insurance contributions and slashing £5bn from the welfare bill.

Asked what mistakes his government had made so far that had led to its drubbing at the ballot box, Mr Streeting told Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips: “Well, we will make plenty of mistakes.”

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Pressed again on whether he believed “mistakes” had been made, the health secretary replied: “No. When we made those choices, we knew they would be unpopular. And we knew that they would be opposed.

“The reason we made those choices is because we genuinely believe they’re the right choices to get the country out of the massive hole it was left in. And right across the board. Whether it’s the NHS, whether it’s schools, whether it’s prisons, whether it’s our defence and security, whether it’s crime and policing, there were enormous challenges facing this country when we came in.

“And we’ve had to make big and sometimes unpopular decisions so that we can face those challenges and deal with them. People might thank us if we just kind of go for the easy but we want to make the right choices.”

Some Labour MPs have urged the government to change direction, with one telling Sky News the cut to winter fuel was a “catastrophic error” that must be “remedied” if the party is to see any improvement in public opinion.

Others have warned that in courting Reform voters, the party risks fracturing its coalition of voters on the left who may be tempted by the Liberal Democrats and Green Party.

However, in the aftermath of the local elections, Sir Keir Starmer suggested the poor results meant he needed to go “further and faster” in delivering his existing agenda.

The real victor to emerge from Thursday’s local elections was Reform UK, which won control of 10 councils and picked up 677 council seats largely at the expense of the Conservatives in the south.

However, Reform also won the Runcorn by-election from Labour by just six votes, as well as control of Doncaster Council from Labour – the only local authority it had control of in this set of elections – in a significant win for Nigel Farage and his party.

The Reform UK leader declared that two-party politics was now “finished” and that his party was now the official “opposition” to Labour.

Asked whether the results meant that Labour would now treat Reform as “your most serious opposition”, Mr Streeting said: ” I certainly do treat them as a serious opposition force.”

“As I say, I don’t know whether it will be Reform or the Conservatives that emerge as the main threat,” he added.

“I don’t have a horse in that race, but like alien versus predator, I don’t really want either one to win.”

Tory Party chairman Nigel Huddleston said Reform UK was not just a protest party and that Mr Farage was “a force in British politics”.

He told Trevor Phillips: “But the one thing about Nigel Farage is, and we’re seeing this again and again and again, he is a populist.

“He is increasingly saying everything that anybody wants to hear. He’s trying to be all things to all men.”

“We are establishing ourselves as a credible alternative government based on sound conservative principles and values and our values and our principles, and therefore our policies, will define the future of our party,” he added.

Environment

It’s back: Hyundai IONIQ 5 qualifies for $7,500 tax credit – again!

Published

3 hours ago

May 4, 2025

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It's back: Hyundai IONIQ 5 qualifies for ,500 tax credit – again!

The Hyundai Ioniq 5 Is Eligible For The $7,500 Federal Tax Credit Again

The Hyundai IONIQ 5 got a raft of upgrades and sporty, rally-focused XRT trim level for 2025 – but the biggest upgrade for the Made in America Hyundai might be this: the 5 has regained eligibility for the full $7,500 federal EV tax credit!

Despite being assembled at Hyundai’s Georgia meta plant for the last four month, the 2025 Hyundai IONIQ 5 was nowhere to be found on the EPA’s list of rebate-eligible vehicles. But that was then – with a fresh updated to the list coming online May 1st, Hyundai’s new-age electric hot hatch is back in the rebate game.

It’s worth noting that lease customers had been able to access the incentive under some circumstances, but this latest update to the EPA list makes it possible for cash and payment buyers to take advantage of the full Federal incentive, too – as long as they earn less than $300,000 as a married couple filing jointly, less than $225,000 as a head of household, or less than $150,000 as an individual.

With the $7,500 federal tax credit in the equation, you can get a new 2025 IONIQ 5 for somewhere in between $36,575 and $49,475, well under the $80,000 Federal MSRP cap.

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Victory lap

As if to celebrate, Hyundai announced that it was taking on the celebrate One Lap of America road rayy and race event in a factory collaboration with the track-focused enthusiasts at Grassroots Motorsports this week with One Lap veterans Andy Hollis and Tom Suddard campaigning a stock, 601 hp 2025 Hyundai IONIQ 5 N in the Alternative Fuels class.

“After winning our class in a gutted, caged race car last year, we wanted to compete in the best-of-all worlds this year: A vehicle that’s incredibly fast, incredibly comfortable on a road trip, and incredibly capable on a racetrack,” explains Suddard. “Electrification means it’s finally possible to have huge power without huge compromises in a street car, and the IONIQ 5 N promises to pair that huge power with the durability and capability to survive a week of racing.”

One Lap is widely regarded as one of the toughest street-legal motorsports events in the world, pitting amateur and professional drivers alike compete in stock and heavily modified vehicles of every description, battling it out in a series of scored challenges, including timed events at road courses, drag strips, skid pads, and autocross courses.

In between tracks, competitors safely travel thousands of miles around the country, proving the mettle and durability of the vehicles and the teams that drive them. This year, 86 teams from all over the country will compete in 17 scored events over the course of eight days at tracks like Virginia International Raceway and NCM Motorsports Park.

The Tire Rack One Lap of America is currently underway – you can track the Hyundai’s progress here, then let us know what you think of this new tax development in the comments.

SOURCES | IMAGES: Hyundai, One Lap of America; FuelEconomy.gov.

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Politics

It is ‘feasible’ Nigel Farage could be the next prime minister, says Kemi Badenoch

Published

6 hours ago

May 4, 2025

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It is 'feasible' Nigel Farage could be the next prime minister, says Kemi Badenoch

Kemi Badenoch has admitted it is “feasible” that Nigel Farage could become the next prime minister.

The Tory leader told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme Mr Farage’s party was “expressing the feeling of frustration that a lot of people around the country are feeling” – but added it was her job to “come up with answers and solutions”.

Asked if it was feasible that Mr Farage could be the next prime minister, she cited how Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese had won re-election this weekend.

“As I said, anything is feasible,” she said. “Anthony Albanese: people were writing him off. He has just won a landslide, but my job is to make sure that he [Farage] does not become prime minister because he does not have the answers to the problems the country is facing.”

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Asked what Mr Farage was doing right, Ms Badenoch said: “He is expressing the feeling of frustration that a lot of people around the country are feeling.

“But he also doesn’t have a record in government like the two main parties do. Now he’s going to be running some councils. We’ll see how that goes.”

Mr Farage was the undoubted winner of Thursday’s local elections, in which 23 councils were up for grabs.

His party picked up 677 council seats and took control of 10 councils.

By contrast, the Conservatives lost 677 council seats as well as control of 18 councils in what was their worst local elections performance on record.

Mr Farage said the outcome spelt the end of two-party politics and that his party was now the official “opposition” to Labour – with the Tories having been rendered a “waste of space”.

Ms Badenoch said she believed the vote for Mr Farage on Thursday was partly down to “protest” but added: “That doesn’t mean we sit back. We are going to come out fighting.

“We are going to come out with the policies that people want to see, but what we are not going to do is rush out and tell the public things that are not true just so we can win votes.

“This is not about winning elections; this is about fixing our country. Yes, of course, you need to win elections to do that, but you also need a credible plan.”

Conservative co-chairman Nigel Huddleston sought to play down the threat from Reform UK, telling Sky News: “When they’re in a position of delivering things, that’s when the shine comes off.”

He told Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips: “The one thing about Nigel Farage is, and we’re seeing this again and again and again, he is a populist.

“He is increasingly saying everything that anybody wants to hear. He’s trying to be all things to all men.”

Asked whether the results meant that Labour would now treat Reform as “your most serious opposition”, Health Secretary Wes Streeting told Trevor Phillips: ” I certainly do treat them as a serious opposition force.”

“As I say, I don’t know whether it will be Reform or the Conservatives that emerge as the main threat,” he added.

“I don’t have a horse in that race, but like alien versus predator, I don’t really want either one to win.”