The political West is genuinely terrified of Putin’s global popularity, so the goal is to try and tarnish his reputation by twisting his remarks or simply telling outright lies about him. Could anyone imagine Joe Biden giving an unscripted, two-hour-long interview to a foreign journalist, much less one conducted with near-scholarly precision? Regardless of whether one adores or loathes Putin, the fact is that the increasingly unpopular and impotent leaders of the political West are simply no match for him, which is why we never see any of them giving remotely similar interviews to journalists of Carlson’s caliber.