Tucker Carlson Reveals Lawyers Strongly Advised Him Against Putin Interview, Warned of Potential Arrest
Tucker Carlson revealed that he was warned about the potential implications of interviewing Russian president Vladimir Putin by his legal team before he jetted off, RadarOnline.com has learned.
"My lawyers before I left, and these are people who work for a big law firm, this is not Bob's Law Firm, this is one of the biggest law firms in the world, said you're going to get arrested if you do this, by the U.S. government on sanctions violations," the former Fox personality shared.
Carlson said that it was not a conclusion they reached lightly. In fact, he said multiple attorneys who researched the topic extensively agreed that venturing over to Russia for the sit-down was a risk during a three-hour podcast with Lex Fridman.
"I said, well I don't recognize the legitimacy of that actually because I'm American and I've been here my whole life and that's so outrageous that I'm happy to face that risk because I so reject the premise," Carlson shared.
The media personality said one of the lawyers explained the way he conducted the interview would likely determine the fallout.
"He said, 'look, a lot will depend on the questions that you ask Putin. If you are seen as too nice to him, you could get arrested when you come back," Carlson recalled.
Leading up to the interview, Carlson said he wanted to chat with Putin one-on-one about the war in Ukraine to learn the truth, claiming that journalists in America were too biased against Russia or had not made enough efforts to find out their side to the story.
After it aired, Carlson's two-hour interview with the former intelligence officer who has served as president in Russia since 2012 received mixed reactions, including from Putin himself who had his own expectations for the conversation.
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"I honestly thought he would be aggressive and ask so-called sharp questions. And I wasn't just ready for that, I wanted it, because it would have given me the opportunity to respond sharply in kind," Putin told Russian media. "But he chose a different tactic."
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also slammed the interview when asked about the Tucker-Putin conversation.
"I heard some messages in the media, and also my guys who are advisers told me," he toldFox News' Bret Baier. "I don't have time to hear more than two hours of bulls--- about us. About the world, about the United States, about our relations."