During Tucker Carlson's much-ballyhooed sit-down with Vladimir Putin earlier this month, the Russian president had a bit of fun at the former Fox News host's expense, needling him for being a history major and for not being accepted into the CIA. Turns out Putin wasn't done poking Carlson. "Frankly, I did not get full satisfaction from this interview," Putin said Wednesday during an appearance on Russian state TV, reports the Guardian. Although Putin says he's "grateful" that Carlson gave him the opportunity to air Russia's side to the West amid the war in Ukraine, he was surprised that the interview had so many softballs.
"To be honest, I thought that [Carlson] would behave aggressively and ask so-called sharp questions," Putin told interviewer Pavel Zarubin. He added that he was surprised Carlson hadn't interrupted him more, and that he'd actually hoped for a more probing, assertive interview, "because it would give me the opportunity to respond in the same way." The Independent, which labels the Carlson-Putin chat a "Kremlin propaganda exercise," notes that, according to that same Kremlin, Putin had agreed to the interview in the first place because Carlson's previous coverage of the Ukraine invasion hadn't been as "one-sided" as that of other Western outlets.
Putin was also asked during his Zarubin interview to weigh in on his preference to win the US presidential election in November, Joe Biden or Donald Trump. Putin replied, "without hesitation," per the Guardian: "Biden. He is a more experienced, predictable person, a politician of the old school." Putin added, however, that "we will work with any US president who the American people have confidence in."
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Putin also demurred on the ongoing controversy over Biden's age and health, noting, per the AP: "I'm not a doctor and I don't consider it proper to comment on that." He did add, however, that when he met with Biden in June 2021, he thought Biden seemed fine. "They talked about him being incapacitated, but I saw nothing of the kind," Putin told Zarubin. "Yes, he was peeking at his papers [but] to be honest, I was peeking at mine, not a big deal." (More Vladimir Putin stories.)
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