‘Leadership Requires Killing’: Tucker Carlson Widely Condemned For Comment On Why He Didn’t Push Putin on Human Rights Abuses
Fired Fox News host Tucker Carlson has made headlines over the past week for his praise of Russia and saying he was “radicalized” by how much nicer Moscow is than any American city. That already-strong criticism of Carlson escalated even further on Friday after news broke that jailed Putin critic Alexei Navalny had died.
On Monday, Carlson was at the World Government Summit in Dubai, where he was interviewed on stage by Egyptian journalist Emad El Din Adeeb.
Adeeb addressed the recent criticism of Carlson over his softball interview with Vladimir Putin, which even the Russian president later criticized for lacking tough questions.
“It’s not for me to give you a lecture about that, but you should challenge some ideas. For instance, you didn’t talk about freedom of speech in Russia, you did not talk about [Alexei] Navalny, about assassinations, about restrictions on opposition in the coming elections,” Adeeb pressed Carlson.
“I didn’t talk about the things that every other American media outlet talks about,” a defensive Carlson shot back, adding:
Because those are covered and because I have spent my life talking to people who run countries in various countries and have concluded the following: that every leader kills people, including my leader.
Every leader kills people, some kill more than others. Leadership requires killing people, sorry, that’s why I wouldn’t want to be a leader. That press restriction is universal in the United States, I know because I’ve lived it. Ask my former – I’ve had a lot of jobs.
The clip began to circulate online and drew reactions of horror and condemnation in the wake of Navalny’s death in a brutal Siberian prison.
Here are some comments from across the political spectrum:
__
