Tucker Carlson is regaining the megaphone, at least temporarily

Last spring, it seemed like Tucker Carlson had reached the end of his fiery streak path through American media and politics.

Fox News canceled its top-rated show, depriving Mr. Carlson of his nightly platform in prime time. But it kept him under a contract, worth more than $15 million a year, that prohibited him from taking a job with a rival.

Under the old rules of traditional media, Mr. Carlson would have been off the air and out of sight until the end of the 2024 election, when his contract expired. But Mr. Carlson is not your typical television star. And what was once normal in his industry is becoming increasingly archaic, shattered by the new rules – or lack thereof – of the fractured online media world.

By landing an exclusive interview with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia — released Thursday on the social network X and Mr. Carlson's own streaming site, Tucker Carlson Network — the host has returned to the center of American politics with a vengeance.

The two-hour interview gave him a megaphone to the American public, just as many Republicans in Congress were trying to block a vital lifeline from U.S. military aides to Ukraine.

It also accomplished Mr. Carlson's goal of returning to the spotlight. For the first time since his defenestration by Fox, his name was once again on the lips of major national and international figures, the kind of fame on which Mr. Carlson has long thrived.

Hillary Clinton this week in an interview with MSNBC's Alex Wagner called him “a useful idiot” and Putin's “puppy dog.”

Mr. Carlson gave Mr. Putin space for uninterrupted exposés on long-standing and decidedly one-sided grievances about Ukraine's origins and independence movements. But Mr. Carlson occasionally pressed, to Mr. Putin's visible chagrin, including why Russia jailed Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter, and disputed Mr. Putin's claim that the Mr Gershkovich was a spy.

Whether the interview will improve Mr. Carlson's position in the long term remains to be seen.

Mr. Putin's interview will serve as a kind of advertisement for his streaming site, which he founded in December and costs subscribers $9 a month. Tucker Carlson Network is an attempt to replicate the business model of other conservative personalities like Megyn Kelly and Ben Shapiro, who have built standalone digital platforms outside of traditional media. Mr. Carlson is working with Red Seat Ventures, a company that counts Ms. Kelly, Bari Weiss and Nancy Grace among its clients, to handle ad sales on the new platform.

So far, however, Mr. Carlson's self-produced interviews on

His waning power seemed to be at least part of the reason Fox hadn't done more to stop his new venture, even though Fox said it violated the terms of his contract. (Mr. Carlson's lawyers have argued that Fox originally breached his contract and that his online show fell within his free speech rights.)

If Fox were to pursue a case against Mr. Carlson, it could give him a chance to claim that his former “corporate media” overlords, as he likes to call them, tried to censor him. It's exactly the kind of argument that plays to Mr. Carlson's fan base, which seems like a political movement in itself, giving Mr. Carlson a position of power afforded to few other television stars.

It was that influence that made Mr. Carlson such a boon to Mr. Trump — and Mr. Putin — during his time at Fox News.

Mr. Carlson was the most prominent promoter of pro-Russian arguments within the network, including his claim that President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine is a dictator used by the West to undermine Russia.

But his propaganda style also took him to the limits of cable television.

His involvement in Dominion Voting Systems' defamation case against Fox, which was settled for $787 million — and the pretrial discovery of a text by Mr. Carlson conveying inflammatory views on violence and race — influenced his company bosses, Lachlan and Rupert Murdoch, in their decision to cut his show.

Mr. Musk quickly stepped in to make Mr. Carlson the first host of a feature-length video show on X.

Mr. Musk completed his purchase of “Freedom of speech is the foundation of a functioning democracy,” Mr. Musk explained to Mr. Carlson, who praised him for “restoring free speech to the internet.”

At And Mr. Musk has not worried about content that could alienate advertisers. (X has offered packages costing $300,000 for ads on four of Mr. Carlson's videos, and up to $1.5 million for ads on 48 videos, according to internal documents obtained by The New York Times.)

Mr. Carlson pushed and ultimately exceeded the limits of what the Murdochs could allow on their network. He hasn't come close to that mark for Mr. Musk, who has reinstated thousands of previously banned accounts that promoted health and election misinformation, matching a rise in racist and anti-Semitic posts on the social network. On Thursday, Mr Musk, the most followed user on the platform, shared Mr Putin's interview with his followers.

Mr. Carlson's show featured well-known Americans, such as Alex Jones, who took issue with content moderation policies on many social media platforms — including Twitter, as X was known before Musk bought it and eliminated most of those policies. .

Other guests included independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of Hungary, each of whom received a supportive reception from Mr. Musk at X.

That shared vision has sometimes extended to Ukraine and Russia. Mr Musk has angered Ukrainians by suggesting they negotiate for peace, which they equate to allowing Mr Putin to keep Ukrainian territory he took by bloody and illegal force.

And while Mr Musk has allowed Ukraine to use its Starlink satellite system for battlefield communications, he has admitted blocking its use for a planned attack on Russia in the Black Sea last year. Mr Putin, in turn, has praised Mr Musk as a “talented businessman”.

Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, had similarly warm words for Mr. Carlson this week, saying that Putin had granted him an interview — which Mr. Carlson had been seeking since his Fox days — because Mr. Carlson “contrasts with the position of the traditional, Anglo-Saxon media.”

Mr. Peskov debunked Mr. Carlson's false suggestion that he was the first Western media figure to interview Mr. Putin since his massive invasion of Ukraine two years ago, because journalists had not bothered to ask. Numerous Western media outlets have made these requests, including The Times.

But Mr. Peskov agreed with Mr. Carlson that traditional media “cannot boast of attempting to even appear impartial.”

Russia has defined impartiality as adherence to its official line, deviation from which risks the decisive censorship of imprisonment. That goes against traditional journalistic norms – standards that Mr. Carlson does not have to concern himself with at X.

The interview certainly seems to be drawing a large audience. The test will be whether this will result in more subscriptions and interest in his show in the future – and if not, how Mr. Carlson will try to outdo himself for his next splash.

Kate Conger reporting contributed.