The Friday Roundup - 2/9/2024 Edition

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Happy Friday everyone, and welcome to another edition of The Skojec File Friday Roundup!

It’s been a busy week, and it’s already late in the evening on Friday, so I’ll only include two stories of note, and they’re both in the arena of politics. (I know. I’m sorry. It’s an election year, and things are happening fast.)

Let’s get right into it, shall we?

The Vladimir Putin Interview - Tucker Carlson/Tucker Carlson Network

I wasn’t able to get through the whole 2 hours of Tucker Carlson’s interview with Putin last night, but I made it to about 1:20.

There are lots of hot takes. I’m still digesting.

I will say a few things:

• Putin launching into a 30 minute Russian history lesson going back to the 9th century at the outset of the interview was a weird flex. That it came on the same day President Biden was found mentally incompetent to stand trial by the Special Prosecutor of the Justice Department, though, made for some stark contrast. Putin clearly has a sense of history, mission, and vision that governs his actions, even if it’s all rooted in a narrative that he likes to tell himself to justify his decisions. The shallowness of our current POTUS and his inability to remember simple things like Mexico not having a border with Palestine only enhances the sense that America has become fat, lazy, and incompetent, and are only the dominant world power because we’re living off a legacy that will eventually run out.

• Tucker Carlson has no fear. Seeing him laugh in Putin’s face like he would if any guest said something he found amusing was really surprising. I think people forget that Putin is a stone-cold killer, and it had me wondering if he would be receiving some Polonium-210 tea some time in the near future. That said, I got the sense that Putin respected Carlson’s chutzpah, and their rapport grew over the interview to the point where they laughed together about a couple of things. This face alone was something I did not expect to see while Putin was speaking:

• Tucker Carlson did nothing wrong. We’re seeing the EU talk about sanctioning him and he is no traitor to his country for doing real journalism. When the gatekeepers guard the narrative this closely, keep your eye on the ball.

• Putin’s vision seems to fit the description given by Geopolitical strategist Peter Zeihan in his book, The Absent Superpower. Zeihan, who believes that geography and demography have proven historically to be the two critical factors that guarantee (or undermine) the success of nations, explains that “Russia’s geography, in a word, sucks.” The vast majority of Russians live in European Russia, a 1,000-mile-wide stretch of land that is “the flattest on earth.” This means its borders to the west are open and impossible to secure.

More from Zeihan: