U.S. conservative talk show host Tucker Carlson said Wednesday he had returned to Russia for a “fascinating” interview with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov about the possibility of nuclear war.
“Are we headed toward an unprecedented conflict between Russia and the United States?” Carlson said in a video outside the Kremlin promoting his interview, which he said would air “very soon.”
“Is there any way to peel Russia back from the East, from the sphere of [influence of] China, back into the West? Is that alliance permanent?” he asked, suggesting those questions were posed to Lavrov.
“Does the election of Donald Trump mean an end to this war?.. Is that possible?”
Carlson is a vocal supporter of Trump, who pledged to swiftly end the Russian-Ukrainian war during his presidential campaign. Ukraine’s allies expressed fears that Trump would try to pressure Kyiv into agreeing to Moscow’s terms.
Lavrov’s spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the 1.5-hour interview would air “in a couple of days” after it is edited and translated.
Carlson claimed he landed in Moscow after the U.S. government “thwarted” his multiple attempts to interview Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Carlson visited Russia in February to interview President Vladimir Putin, who defended his decision to invade Ukraine in 2022 and argued that U.S., European and NATO assistance would not help Ukraine defeat Russia on the battlefield.
The outgoing Biden administration has since allowed Ukraine to fire Western-supplied missiles inside Russian territory, a decision which Carlson said meant the U.S. was in a “hot war” with Russia.
Carlson also said that the decision has driven Russia and the United States closer to a nuclear war. “Because of the fact that the U.S. military is killing Russians in Russia right now, we are closer to nuclear war than any time in history,” Carlson claimed.
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