A member of the European Parliament is calling on the legislative body to consider imposing sanctions on Tucker Carlson over his interview with Russian president Vladimir Putin, according to a new report.
“As Putin is a war criminal and the EU sanctions all who assist him in that effort, it seems logical that the External Action Service examine his case as well,” MEP Guy Verhofstadt, a former Belgian Prime Minister, told Newsweek.
Verhofstadt floated the idea of a travel ban against the former Fox News host, whom he called a “mouthpiece” of former president Donald Trump and Putin. The interview makes Carlson the first Western journalist to interview Putin since Russia invaded Ukraine.
Any potential sanctions would first have to be approved by the External Action Service (EAS), the bloc’s diplomatic arm that is responsible for foreign policy. After the EAS reviews evidence, it can then bring the case to the European Council to make the final decision.
The council has struggled to pass sanctions on individuals linked to the Kremlin, meaning it is unlikely efforts to sanction Carlson would garner significant support. Any sanctions against Carlson would likely require proof that he is connected to Russia’s aggression, something that os “absent or hard to prove,” one unnamed official told the outlet.
Carlson, for his part, said he chose to interview the Russian dictator because “Most Americans have no idea why Putin invaded Ukraine or what his goals are now.”
“We are not here because we love Vladimir Putin….We are not encouraging you to agree with what Putin may say in this interview, but we are urging you to watch it. You should know as much as you can,” Carlson said in a video statement published on Tuesday.
“Americans have a right to know all they can about a war they’re implicated in and we have the right to tell them about it,” he added.
MEP Urmas Paet was similarly critical of Carlson’s interview, which has yet to be released.
“Carlson wants to give a platform to someone accused of crimes of genocide—this is wrong,” Paet told Newsweek. “If Putin has something to say he needs to say it in front of the ICC. At the same time Carlson is not being a real journalist since he has clearly expressed his sympathy for the Russian regime and Putin and has constantly disparaged Ukraine, the victim of Russian aggression.”
“So, for such propaganda for a criminal regime, you can end up on the list of sanctions,” he added. “This concerns primarily travel ban to EU countries.”
However, Polish MEP Witold Waszczykowski told the outlet it should be left to American journalists to evaluate Carlson’s behavior.
Carlson has been critical of American aid to Ukraine and of Ukrainian president Vladimir Zelensky.
“Zelensky has no interest in freedom and democracy. In fact, Zelensky is far closer to Lenin than to George Washington. He is a dictator. He is a dangerous authoritarian who has used a hundred billion in U.S. tax dollars to erect a one-party police state in Ukraine,” Carlson said in 2022.
Fox News cut ties with Carlson in April and has since launched his own show on X.
He interviewed Trump on his show in August in an episode that was released moments before the rest of the then-Republican presidential candidates took the stage for a debate in Milwaukee. In that pre-recorded interview, Carlson failed to push back against Trump’s conspiracies and even peddled some of his own, suggesting that former U.S. attorney general Bill Barr lied about billionaire and accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein’s cause of death in jail. Epstein died in 2019 of an apparent suicide in jail.