Historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat Tells Dean Obeidallah That Tucker Carlson ‘Is One Of The Most Dangerous People Alive’

Historian and author Ruth Ben-Ghiat told radio host Dean Obeidallah that Tucker Carlson is “one of the most dangerous people alive” because he’s “fully on board” with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

On Friday’s edition of SiriusXM’s Dean Obeidallah Show, the host asked the  “Strongmen: Mussolini To The Present” author about the tense situation with Russia and Ukraine, and whether there’s a “divide” within the Republican Party over Putin and Russia.

Prof. Ben-Ghiat chalked it up partially to a “generational” divide, with Carlson in the younger, more pro-Putin camp:

Dean: There are some Republicans–and Tucker Carlson of course and [GOP Senator] Josh Hawley–and a few others who in the past said nice things about Putin like, “he’s a real leader.” But then there’s other Republicans who are really old time Republicans–they say Russia is our adversary and we gotta deal with these guys harshly. Do you think there’s an internal divide within the GOP or is there a sense one way or the other where they actually in their heart’s lie?

Ruth: It’s a little bit generational and temperamental…China is a horrible authoritarian state in fact [Chinese President] Xi and Putin just made this big, “Hi, we’re friends were allied” and that’s just not surprising at all. But during the Trump years, I was very suspicious of this concentration of the hatred towards China because it was everybody needs an enemy–that’s how Republicans think, Trump knows this. So they designated China the enemy so Russia wouldn’t have to be the enemy because they were pro-Putin.

So what you see is older or more traditional Republicans in foreign relations see Russia for what it is and they take the stance accordingly. But unfortunately the other part of Republicans differ…Putin is the global champion of bringing America down, that’s his other goal. It’s saving Russia but it also means bringing America down and bringing all democracies down, they’re a threat to him.

So if you’re on board with that then that’s why I use these strong words like “traitors” and “seditionists” and “subversives”, then you have to be pro-Putin. And Tucker Carlson is one of the most dangerous people alive right now actually and is fully on board with that and so are these new [GOP] radicals who have come in–and again there the voices of the newly radicalized GOP–they’re all on the Putin train.

Watch above via SiriusXM.

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