At the World Government Summit in Dubai, US journalist Tucker Carlson spoke with TV presenter Emad Eldin Adeeb about his two-hour interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

The US journalist and former Fox TV host answered why certain topics were not discussed during the interview, how the US establishment reacted to it, and why the US continues failing to understand Russia.

However, he claimed as well that he conducted an off-the-record conversation with Putin after their interview, but refused to reveal what was said.

According to Carlson, Putin seemed willing to launch negotiations with the West to end the war in Ukraine and discuss a new balance of world power, because diplomacy is the art of compromise, and noted that almost everyone “other than maybe the United States during the unipolar period” knows this.

Read next: Key points from Tucker Carlson's interview with Putin

He added that even though Putin wants an end to the war, his stance will only harden the longer it continues.

'Steam in a sauna and think'

Carlson expressed that in his view, one of the major discoveries in the experience was that Russia asked to join the NATO alliance, but even when then-US President Bill Clinton seemed accepting of it, his aides pushed to make it fail.

The former host highlighted that since NATO aimed to keep the Soviet Union out of Western Europe, “if the Russians ask to join the alliance, that would suggest you have solved the problem and you can move on to do something constructive with your life. But we refused.”

“Go sit in the sauna for an hour and think about what that means,” he said.

Ep. 73 The Vladimir Putin Interview pic.twitter.com/67YuZRkfLL

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) February 8, 2024

In a four-minute video recorded in Moscow and previewing the interview, Carlson stated, "Most Americans have no idea why Putin invaded Ukraine or what his goals are now." 

He said “You’ve never heard his voice. That’s wrong. Americans have a right to know all we can about a war they’re implicated in, and we have the right to tell them about it,” adding that Western governments will try to censor the video because "they are afraid of information they can't control."

He additionally took a jab at the politicians of the West for not setting possible or “achievable” goals.

“I have heard personally US government officials say well we just have to return Crimea to Ukraine,” he said. “That’s not going to happen, short of a nuclear war. That’s insane, actually.”

Even bringing up this kind of idea “shows you are a child, you don’t understand the area at all, and you have no real sense of what’s possible,” Carlson said.

'America's not pretty anymore'

During his talk at the summit, he voiced that one of the greatest issues of the US and the West is the inclination to reduce everything to the 1938 Munich conference - when the UK and France wanted to “appease” Nazi Germany by giving it a piece of Czechoslovakia.

Read more: EU not currently discussing sanctions on Tucker Carlson

“The American policymaker historical template is tiny – in fact there’s only one – and it’s a 2-year period in the late 1930s, and everything is based on that understanding of history and human nature. That’s insane,” Carlson said.

With that being said, he noted that he’s 54 and grew up in an America that was home to nice, safe, and beautiful cities, “and we no longer have them.”

He argued how “radicalizing” it was to see Moscow “cleaner, safer and prettier” than US cities, or see the same in Dubai and Abu Dhabi when in New York City, riding the subway isn't an option because it’s dirty and unsafe.

“That’s a voluntary choice,” he said. “You don’t have to have crime, actually.”

'How's Libya doing?'

As for why certain topics weren't discussed, Carlson argued that the aim of the interview was his interest in how Putin saw the world.

He topped it off by saying that most journalists who interview leaders not friendly with the US aim to make the conversation about themselves and already took the approval of Putin's wife and children.

When he was finally asked to reply to Hillary Clinton calling him “useful idiot” for Russia, Carlson laughed and said “She’s a child, I don’t listen to her,” he said. “How’s Libya doing?”

It is worth noting that the term useful idiot has been used in the US political jargon as a derogatory term falsely attributed to Vladimir Lenin to undermine the trustworthiness of anyone who questioned US policies against the Soviet Union back then. As such, dubbing Carlson comes with implications, as the claims against him only emerged after he left Murdoch-owned Fox News.