Former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson is playing the "useful idiot" for the Kremlin as he continues to echo Russian propaganda, experts have said, with his comments being repeatedly reproduced on the nation's state television as external justification for its warped worldview.
Joanna Szostek, a scholar in Russian disinformation, told Newsweek that Russia commonly uses voices in the West that align with its views "in an attempt to make the Russian propaganda appear more persuasive."
As the conservative commentator is aiming his comments at the American political bubble, being quoted on Russian TV was likely not his intention, Alex Waddan, an academic in U.S. politics, said. He suggested there was a "symbiotic" relationship between the two, but it was unclear "who's sort of nourishing who in that relationship."
Newsweek approached Carlson via direct message for comment on Thursday.
How Russian Propagandists Echo Tucker Carlson
Carlson has often been accused of repeating Russian talking points. Shortly after the invasion of Ukraine began last year, he questioned whether the perception that Putin—whose unprovoked war has since cost the lives of an estimated 350,000 people—was justifiably the subject of hatred.
In July, Carlson was criticized by a U.S.-based Orthodox Christian group for "spout[ing] Russian propaganda" about unfounded claims of the persecution of Christians in Ukraine.
But more recently, he has been getting regular mentions on Russian state TV. In late August, prominent Kremlin propagandist Vladimir Solovyov told his Rossiya-1 audience that Carlson was a "dead man walking" for claiming that the U.S. and Russia would go to war in the next year—a war Carlson predicted America would lose.
Then Dmitry Kiselyov, an appointee of Vladimir Putin who in 2014 said Russia could turn the U.S. "into radioactive dust," reproduced Carlson's comments again, visibly taking glee in the former Fox anchor's claims that Ukraine "would crumble" without NATO support.
"Tucker Carlson is a highly qualified journalist," Kiselyov declared, as he used the now freelance podcaster's remarks to paint American political leadership as inherently anti-Russia and thirsting for a nuclear war.
"I wouldn't say the Russian media's use of Carlson's comments marked any kind of change in the behaviour of Russian state propaganda," Szostek, a lecturer in political communication at the University of Glasgow in the U.K., said. "It's actually quite common (and has been for years) for the Russian state media to pick up on commentators and media reports in Western countries which align with the Kremlin's view of things."
She said that major Russian news sites run reports citing Western sources "almost every day" as apparent evidence for the claim that support for Ukraine is faltering.
"Such sources are used in an attempt to make the Russian propaganda appear more persuasive, as well as to suggest divisions in Western political circles (and where possible, to suggest that Western countries are not really democratic, that critics are suppressed etc.)," Szostek said.
This would go some way to explaining why Solovyov predicted Carlson's assassination, and why Kiselyov made a point of casting Democratic and Republican leadership—but not grassroots members or upstart candidates—as expressing anti-Russian sentiments in order to win the next election.
The American commentator's use as a tool by Russian state broadcasters to embellish their misinformation campaigns may not be something entirely deliberate, though, Waddan said.
"The contrarian-ness [of Carlson's comments] would have pointed to the American political environment, and that's the bubble in which he works—and so the fact that he's been quoted on Russian state media as an important voice in America, I would assume that's not what he intended to do," the associate professor in politics at the University of Leicester in the U.K. said.
Pushing Further Than Donald Trump
Carlson's rhetoric around Russian comes at a time when support for Ukraine is being recast as a Democratic Party policy by some on the American right, who see the billions in defensive aid being sent there as at odds with the economic situation in the U.S.
Among the Republican presidential primary candidates, Vivek Ramaswamy said during a TV debate in August that he would pull funding to Ukraine if elected—a claim criticized by rival and former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley—while Florida Governor Ron DeSantis described the war as a "territorial dispute" in March.
"From the viewpoint of the Kremlin propaganda machine, Carlson is a very useful and high-profile 'useful idiot,'" Szostek said. "I definitely see dangers for Ukraine and the rest of the world if next year's U.S. election brings to power people who think like Carlson."
Waddan said that though Russian propagandists and Carlson "certainly are feeding off each other," who is "taking a lead in that relationship is difficult to say."
"Carlson will piggy-back off Russian propaganda and then, clearly, they exploit his status to repeat that and broadcast it out—and I assume elevate to a Russian audience Carlson's importance," he added.
Asked whether Carlson had become more sympathetic to Russia since his departure from network news, Waddan suggested he was "somewhat liberated" but that "he was not exactly penned in at Fox."
"What will be interesting to know is how Russian media portray Carlson's relationship with mainstream American politics," he said. "Whether they portray him as someone who's close to [Donald] Trump will be interesting."
The former president and GOP candidate has pledged to end the war in Ukraine on his first day back in office, and has previously faced criticism for his sympathy towards Putin. As Trump's chosen interviewer instead of attending the Republican primary debate, Carlson's views on Russia could be seen as just a facet of the ideological shift among conservatives.
"In a sense, Carlson is almost the outrider," Waddan said. "He pushes further ahead than Trump does in terms of that sympathetic to Moscow line."
