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US journalist Tucker Carlson says Washington obstructed his plans to interview Putin

The former Fox News host lamented that nobody in the US news media had defended him, whereas he insisted that had a right to hear what the Russian leader says about the Ukrainian conflict

MOSCOW, September 25. /TASS/. US television journalist Tucker Carlson told Switzerland’s Die Weltwoche magazine that he had sought to interview Russian President Vladimir Putin but that senior US officials obstructed his attempts to do so.

"I tried to interview Vladimir Putin, and the US government stopped me. So, think about that for a minute," Carlson, a former Fox News host, told the Swiss media outlet on Sunday. He lamented that nobody in the US news media had defended him, whereas he insisted that had a right to hear what the Russian leader says about the Ukrainian conflict.

According to Carlson, over decades, there has been an aggressive attempt on the part of senior US officials to control the news media. He also said that the newspeople are afraid "to say something that will offend the people who run the government."

On August 27, Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of RT Television, told Rossiya-1 TV channel that Carlson had expressed a desire to interview Putin and she had asked that the Russian head of state be made aware of the request.