Representative Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation” accused Fox News host Tucker Carlson of having “an affection for authoritarianism.”
Partial transcript as follows:
MARGARET BRENNAN: On Russia, generally, you know, there had been for so long bipartisan support for standing up to Russia and standing up for democracies. But there is this interesting trend within the conservative movement right now. You have more Trump oriented parts of the party, like- like Senator Josh Hawley, who recently called on President Biden to rule out admitting Ukraine into NATO. You have similar sentiment- sentiments elsewhere. What is happening here? I mean, how significant a portion of the Republican Party is moving in this direction.
KINZINGER: Well, I don’t think it’s a huge portion, but it’s way too big and it’s growing and it’s a huge concern. I mean, what was this five years ago? It might be like somebody like Rand Paul that would say something or Dana Rohrabacher. Now there’s a significant number of folks doing it with Tucker Carlson talking about, you know, how great Vladimir Putin is and how Ukraine is really actually part of Russia. I think it’s a couple of things. Number one, it could be some naivete on foreign policy, not in Tucker’s case. I think it’s an affection for authoritarianism. And I think Vladimir Putin has done a decent job of engaging in culture battles and culture war, and he is seen as the person defending, in essence, the culture of the past. And so it’s very frightening. And by the way, you know, Ukraine is not sure. Already, one third of the country of Georgia is occupied by Russia. Nobody’s going to stop them from going into the rest of that. Then you have the Baltics, you have the Balkans that they’re interfering in. This is a frightening moment, and any Republican that has affection for Vladimir Putin has no understanding of what our party stands for or what out country stands for.
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