Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman called out Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s “fanboying over authoritarianism” while explaining, in part, why President Vladimir Putin is aggressively amassing troops on the Russia-Ukraine border.
Vindman’s analysis came on Wednesday night’s All In and followed host Chris Hayes’s noting that Putin appears to, in many ways, be trying to reconstitute the Soviet Union, or at least exert control over “former vassal states,” that comprised the USSR.
Vindman is the now-retired Lieutenant Colonel who was born in Russia and is a decorated expert on this issue. He recently served as Director for European Affairs for the United States National Security Council before resigning from that position in February of 2020 amid controversy surrounding former President Donald Trump’s phone call with the Ukrainian president. That call led to Trump’s first impeachment for which he was acquitted.
After a brief assessment of the current geopolitical landscape in Eastern Europe explaining Putin’s aggressions, Vindman rhetorically asked why is this all happening now, and explained a number of variables at play.
“It’s mainly because a sense of opportunity, a sense of weakness within the United States,” that Putin sees at the moment, according to Vindman. “I have every reason to believe that if we had not had an insurrection on January 6th, because of President Trump, President Putin would not believe there was an opportunity,
He then pivoted to the current political landscape and how the hyperpartisan cable news ecosystem has, in his opinion, ostensibly destabilized the United States enough for Putin to see an opportunity.
“The hyperpolarization that Trump continues to nourish in the United States helps,” Vindman said. “He has major talking heads on Fox News, like Tucker Carlson pandering to his interests, pandering to drawing false equivalency’s to the U.S. And Russia, really kind of fanboying over authoritarianism.”
On Tuesday evening Carlson insulted MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough as “stupid” after playing a clip of the Morning Joe host calling out Putin propagandists in America, but immediately followed by presenting an argument why Russia does not want Ukraine to join NATO in a manner that could fairly be labeled as Putin propaganda.
Carlson has also interviewed Hungarian strongman Viktor Orban, effectively celebrating his authoritarianism, and has announced plans to interview him again. “Fanboy” may be a divisive term, but Carlson is not asking Orban any truly critical questions, and elevating his strong man style of leadership is a curious development for the top-rated cable news host.
Vindman continued to assess what he called “perception of vulnerabilities and fractures between the U.S. In Europe” that Putin likely sees and how it’s “only going to get harder to act in the future and the time to
“It’s going to be enormously impactful on geopolitics, it’s going to be a human catastrophe,” he warned. “Frankly, we would be doing everything in our power to avoid this from happening, because when those first shots are fired, we don’t have a good idea of how things are going to unfold. ”
Watch above via MSNBC.