Gish Gallop: How Putin Ran Roughshod Over Supplicant Tucker Carlson
Tucker Carlson is an intelligent broadcaster who boldly arranged a controversial interview with Russian president — and accused war criminal — Vladimir Putin. Now the results are in, and it turns out the former Fox News host was no match for the Russian strongman, who ran roughshod over him in an interview that lasted more than two hours and delivered very little news.
Two hours and ten minutes. My Dinner With Andre was 20 minutes shorter and considerably more entertaining. If there’s anything to be taken away from Carlson’s trip to Moscow, it was a bold-lettered reminder of the critical role of editors in visual media.
Okay, that might be somewhat uncharitable. To his credit, Carlson did press Putin on imprisoned Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich but did so in a self-promoting manner that would have made him the savior. Aside from that, the interview was essentially a platform for Putin to simply spew standard Putinisms, largely unchecked.
Carlson felt compelled to address Putin’s prattling in an intro apparently designed to warn the viewer that, yes, the first 30 minutes of this interview will be an intolerably long answer to a single question. Carlson did not say whether the Kremlin insisted that the interview be published unedited in exchange for access to arguably the most powerful person in the Eastern Hemisphere.
The rhetorical device that Putin employed is known as the “Gish gallop,” which has been defined as “a fallacious debate tactic in which a person uses as many arguments as possible against their opponent without any consideration into the strength of the arguments.” Putin’s excruciating detail of Russian history overwhelmed viewers, apart from very dedicated Kremlinologists. And given that it was the first quarter of a two-hour interview, it surely led many people to tune out.
A foundational pillar of journalism is speaking truth to power. In this marathon interview, Carlson rarely did such a thing. In fact, nearly every foreign policy claim made by Putin was taken as fact and went unchallenged by Carlson. In that regard, Carlson did little to dispel preemptive criticisms that he’s a useful idiot using his platform to spread pro-Putin propaganda.
A perfect example of this is the Nord Stream pipeline explosion, which Tucker Carlson famously pinned on the US — precisely what Putin has claimed. The US has aggressively denied the allegation.
I don’t know who blew up the pipeline, but it’s clear that it remains an open debate. It is noteworthy that Carlson defaulted to Putin’s position, and accepted when he declined to provide any evidence to support his claims.
I’ve been very critical of Carlson here — I’ve blasted him for lying, being a racist, and a Putin apologist. But I don’t actually blame him for going after Putin as an interview subject. It’s controversial and got him much-needed attention, but fortune favors the bold.
And I suspect most of the viewers of the interview who are critical of Carlson were probably disappointed that he wasn’t nearly as subservient as they expected. He did defend Gershkovich and pressed on why he invaded Ukraine, though never really getting a clear answer.
But this was a missed opportunity — mainly because the final interview wasn’t edited for brevity and clarity. But also, Tucker Carlson could have surprised the world and really grilled Putin. He did not. He presented as a respectful and curious ally as if he were entirely ignorant of the thousands of children killed because of his subject.
And that’s unforgivable.
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
