Tucker Carlson says Russia is 'not an expansionist power' after Putin interview

After Tucker Carlson's interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the journalist reflected on talking with the Russian leader for several minutes afterward and said he did not think the country was an "expansionist power." 

The interview of Carlson at the Kremlin with Putin lasted for around two hours and was released on Thursday. After the interview, Carlson then recorded his thoughts about what he experienced while talking to Putin.  

"The West rejected Russia... Putin is wounded, he's very upset about it," the journalist commented. "Russia's not an expansionist power. Sorry. You're not supposed to say that." 

Carlon went on to explain that the "liars and the ideologies who run the State Department want to make him into this Hitler, imperial Japan" type of image. The journalist said he thought this was false. 

Right after Carlson and his team arrived back at their hotel, Carlson said that he did not really know what to think of the interview.  

"I'm not exactly sure what I thought of the interview. It just happened. It's probably going to take me a year to really decide what that was." 

Carlson went on to explain that Putin was not good at explaining himself very well in the journalist's questioning. "He’s clearly spending a lot of time in a world where he doesn’t have to explain himself," Carlson remarked. The couple of things that stuck out to Carlson included Putin feeling wounded by the West and that he did not want to be isolated from NATO. 

Before Carlson went back to the hotel and immediately after the interview, he filmed his thoughts on why Putin addressed the history of Russia for so long at the beginning.