https://www.newsweek.com/tucker-carlson-throws-putin-under-bus-1874897

After an embarrassing showing simping for an autocrat, Tucker Carlson finally finds his balls (as long as Daddy Putin isn’t in the room with him).

Tucker Carlson bashed Russian President Vladimir Putin's justification for invading Ukraine, claiming that the "denazification" of the country was "one of the dumbest things I'd ever heard."

Speaking with host Lex Fridman in a podcast episode released Tuesday, Carlson discussed his controversial interview with Putin released earlier this month. The former Fox News star has faced mounds of backlash for meeting with the Kremlin leader, which was the first time Putin agreed to sit down for an interview with Western media personnel since the start of the war in Ukraine.

Putin and Carlson's interview touched on a long list of topics, from a long-winded Russian history lesson to Putin's thoughts on the next U.S. presidential election. Carlson also described his first impression of Putin as someone who "seemed nervous," telling Fridman that the Russian president "went into [the interview] like an over-prepared student."

Fridman specifically asked Carlson for his opinion on Putin's justification for continuing the war in Ukraine, which in part is to achieve the "denazification" of the country. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who is Jewish, has repeatedly dismissed the Kremlin's claims that Kyiv's government is openly "pro-Nazi."

"I thought it was one of the dumbest things I'd ever heard," Carlson told Fridman. "I didn't understand what it meant."