With the fervor he normally reserves for misogynistic or racist screeds, Tucker Carlson has taken up a new cause: defending Russia from the libs. “[Vladimir Putin,] for all his faults, does not hate America as much as many of these people do,” Carlson said on his show Monday night, referring to members of the media who’ve criticized Republicans for cozying up to Moscow. “They really dislike our country. And they call other people traitors?”

This seems to be a new pet line for Carlson, who said last week that he’s cheering for Russia in its conflict with Ukraine—the U.S. ally Trump attempted to extort to gin up an investigation into Joe Biden. “Why do I care what’s going on in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia?” he asked during a panel discussion. “And I’m serious—like, why do I care? And why shouldn’t I root for Russia? Which I am.”

He amended that with an assurance that “I’m joking. I’m only rooting for America.” But he was back at it again Monday evening, mocking Chuck Todd and others he said are “hysterical” in their Russia-related coverage, and downplaying the threat Putin poses to the U.S. “Russia is not America’s main enemy, obviously,” Carlson said. “Our main enemy, of course, is China. And the U.S. ought to be in a relationship with Russia aligned against China, to the extent that we can.”

No surprise, the remarks did not go over well in most spheres. “Tucker Carlson is dangerous,” tweeted former George W. Bush aide Tony Fratto, while former CIA officer Evan McMullin called the screed a “betrayal.” They were probably better received on the right, where Republicans have been attempting to frame Ukraine, as opposed to Russia, as an aggressor, thereby lending legitimacy to Trump’s claims that he was completely justified in pushing Voldymyr Zelensky to clean up his country’s act, and that doing so just happened to implicate the Bidens. “I think both Russia and Ukraine meddled in the 2016 election,” senator Joe Kennedy said on Sunday’s Meet the Press. “I think it's been well documented in the Financial Times, in Politico, in The Economist, in the Washington Examiner, even on CBS, that the prime minister of Ukraine, the interior minister, the Ukrainian ambassador to the United States, the head of the Ukrainian Anti-Corruption League, all meddled in the election on social media and otherwise. They worked with a DNC operative.”

In this bizarro framing, Russia is the good guy—a sentiment in line with Trump’s hesitance to condemn Russian meddling in 2016, and one that’s likely exactly what Putin wants to hear. (In fact, U.S. intelligence has concluded that Russia itself is behind the narrative that Ukraine is to blame—something Russia expert Fiona Hill spoke to during her public impeachment testimony.) By adopting Trump’s preferred conspiracy theory toward the Kremlin, Carlson is essentially airing talking points on Trump’s behalf. He’s also shifting the goalposts. At first, the company line was that Trump had nothing to do with Russia, was actually tougher on Moscow than Barack Obama, and was nothing but a “perfect” friend to Ukraine. Now, faced with the task of proving Trump did not do what many people have said he did, the line has shifted to: Ukraine is the enemy. The president has ever right to strong-arm the enemy. Even if he’s doing so to make his own re-election easier.

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