Send Tucker Carlson to Moscow

The Putin regime charged Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich with espionage at the end of March, saying the 31-year-old son of Soviet Jewish émigrés had sought classified information about a Russian defense factory. According to Bloomberg News, Vladimir Putin personally approved the arrest. Gershkovich denied the charges, and a cavalry of institutions and individuals rode in to defend him.

The Committee to Protect Journalists immediately called for his release; editorials from major newspapers concurred; Senate leaders Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell issued a joint bipartisan demand for Russia to unshackle him; and Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused the Russians of nabbing Gershkovich as a pawn for a future prisoner swap. Meanwhile, the United States has designated Gershkovich “wrongfully detained,” which transferred his case to the Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs, signaling diplomatic ferocity to come.

Naturally, Gershkovich has the Wall Street Journal in his corner, but all the protests and outraged editorials amount to shouting into the wind. To win release, Gershkovich needs a champion who has an affinity for Moscow, an operator who has rapport with Vladimir Putin, somebody who isn’t afraid of sticking his neck out, somebody who works for the same media mogul as Gershkovich.

That somebody is Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

Why Carlson? He has consistently questioned American involvement in the Ukraine war and is a longtime skeptic of the Russia hawks. He even went so far as to ask in late 2019, “Why shouldn’t I root for Russia? Which by the way, I am.” Although Carlson said later in the broadcast that he was kidding, not everybody took it that way — and for good reason. He called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “a dictator.” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has returned Carlson’s pro-Russia treatment, stroking Fox News for “trying to represent some alternative points of view.”

Carlson continues to criticize the Biden administration at every turn and to pooh-pooh Russian involvement in the 2016 presidential election. The Kremlin officially endorsed Carlson in 2022, issuing a memo to the Russian media stating it is “essential” to rebroadcast Carlson clips to Russian audiences — even though Russian media was already recycling his stuff. As recently as February 2022, Carlson was rigorously fluffing Putin on his show with comments like this:

“Why do Democrats want you to hate Putin? Has Putin shipped every middle-class job in your town to Russia? Did he manufacture a worldwide pandemic that wrecked your business? Is he teaching your kids to embrace racial discrimination? Is he making fentanyl? Does he eat dogs?” Carlson said. For more pro-Putin, pro-Russia utterances by Carlson, see David Corn’s piece in Mother Jones.

Carlson has every right to his opinions on Putin and Russia, even if they’re daft. But as long as we’re stuck with Carlson, perhaps we could put his naïve Russophilia to good work by dispatching him to Moscow to negotiate the Gershkovich case. Surely the Russian government would not oppose a visit from Carlson, whose views align so perfectly with theirs and whose standing in the country amounts to an ad hoc fan club.

According to Nexis transcripts, 20 Fox News broadcasts have mentioned Gershkovich since his arrest, so the network hasn’t ignored his plight. On April 3, Carlson spoke out for Gershkovich on Tucker Carlson Tonight, so sending him on a mission to Moscow wouldn’t ruffle his brand. In that episode, Carlson urged the Biden administration to work “through backchannels” to start negotiations while damning it for trying to shame Putin with “self-righteous statements about press freedom.” What better frontchannel than a Carlson visit?

If Carlson went to Moscow, he would have to avoid violating the 18th century Logan Act, which prohibits private citizens from engaging in direct diplomacy with foreign governments. But that might not be a problem. Jesse Jackson successfully finessed the letter of the law in his wide-ranging crusades to liberate American hostages and prisoners from Serbia, Kuwait, Syria, Cuba and Iraq. Officially, Jackson pissed off the diplomats. Privately, they were pleased. Should Carlson choose to invest some of his personal Russian capital in such an effort, surely the U.S. government will stay calm. No one’s ever been convicted of defying the Logan Act, anyway.

By working for Gershkovich’s release, Carlson also would be doing a solid for Rupert Murdoch, who controls both Fox and the Wall Street Journal. Even though Murdoch has tainted most of his news properties around the world with his personal brand of sensationalism and his co-optation of power, he has defied all predictions made when he purchased the Journal that he would end up soiling it. Murdoch’s greatest love has been newspapering, and it must trouble even his cankerous old soul that one of his reporters is doing time in a Russian jail for doing journalism.

Although currently pinned down defending Fox from the $1.7 billion Dominion defamation lawsuit, Murdoch could surely find time to board his private jet with Carlson and fly to Moscow to jawbone Putin. They could make a good one-two combination — Carlson the sycophant and Murdoch the seasoned manipulator of presidents and prime ministers. Plus, it might make Murdoch a hero in the eyes of the Dominion jury. Such a payoff for Carlson is not in the cards. His reputation can’t be salvaged at this point, so his only motivation would be the glory of doing the right thing.

The argument against sending Carlson (and Murdoch) to Moscow is simple. The spectacle of Carlson begging for the reporter’s release would amount to a propaganda victory for Putin. The self-abasement required to secure such a triumph would sting, not just Carlson but every American offended by Putin’s thuggery. But such propaganda victories eventually cool and are forgotten, as Jesse Jackson proved. Even if the gloating lasted, it would be worth springing an innocent man from jail.

Freeing Gershkovich wouldn’t amount to the usual America First stuff Carlson preaches, but it would put a deserving American first.

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How about that Trump interview Carlson did Monday? Surely a fella who will kowtow to Trump can kowtow to Putin. Send kowtows to [email protected]. No new email alert subscriptions are being honored at this time. My Twitter feed was detained in Tonga once. My Mastodon and Post accounts have called for jailing my Substack Notes. My RSS feed is ready to mount a Jason Bournesque rescue of Gershkovich.