RIGHT-WING US pundit Tucker Carlson should be sanctioned by the UK Government for a “love-in” interview with Vladimir Putin, an SNP MP has said.
The pro-Donald Trump news anchor this week became the first western journalist to be granted an audience with the Russian president since the beginning of the Ukraine war.
But he has drawn widespread criticism for failing to challenge Putin.
Stewart McDonald, who has previously claimed to be the victim of Russian cyberattacks, blasted Carlson for spreading “Kremlin propaganda”.
He has written to David Cameron about the interview, urging the Foreign Secretary to place sanctions on Carlson.
McDonald wrote: “It was war propaganda produced for the benefit of a hostile state.”
Writing on Twitter/X, the MP added: "Carlson's love-in was not journalism, but an exercise in Kremlin propaganda that abets Russian aggression, undermines the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, and washes over the crimes for which Putin is indicted by the [International Criminal Court]."
The two-hour-long interview was broadcast on Carlson’s website and saw Putin urge America to stop arming Ukraine.
Others have criticised the interview, including veteran broadcaster Andrew Neil, who criticised Carlson’s inability to interrupt Putin.
READ MORE: Scottish MP Stewart McDonald says emails stolen by Russian hackers
Writing in the Daily Mail, Neil said: “Right from the get-go Putin hijacked the interview with an interminable discourse on Russian history which started in the 9th century and took over half an hour to get to the 20th century, much less Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, which took almost another half hour.”
Other than a few “feeble interjections” Carlson “just sat there with an increasingly pained expression as he realised what was meant to be his great broadcasting coup — Putin’s first interview with Western media since the invasion — was disappearing down the Swanee,” Neil added.
In a review of the interview, BBC eastern Europe correspondent Sarah Rainsford said: “Putin was fully in charge of this encounter and for large parts of it his interviewer barely got a word in.
“Instead of pushing the Russian leader – indicted as a suspected war criminal – on his full-scale invasion of Ukraine and challenging his false assertions, Carlson swerved off-piste to talk God and the Russian soul.”
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