Tucker Carlson Takes Putin’s Propaganda on Tour Down Under – Why Should Australians be Concerned?

Tucker Carlson is touring across Australia. As the nation faces the growing problem of conspiracy theories depleting trust in institutions, Carlson’s visit highlights a key source of this divisive propaganda: the Kremlin.

This week, Tucker Carlson, one of America’s most notorious pro-Putin conspiracy-peddlers began a five-state tour across Australia. The tour is sponsored by Queensland billionaire Clive Palmer, the country’s biggest political donor and backer of the far right United Australia Party (UAP) whose slogan “Make Australia Great” borrows from the campaign of the former president and convicted felon Donald J. Trump. Why should Australians be concerned about Palmer’s latest American import, Carlson’s tour?

The tour follows Carlson’s recent trip to Moscow, where he conducted a two-hour interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The interview provided an unchecked platform for Putin to present revisionist history and propagate anti-West conspiracy theories, selling modern-day Russian imperialism to an American audience. He failed to question Putin on the ongoing investigation into his war crimes, or the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court for kidnapping thousands of Ukrainian children. Within hours of Carlson’s broadcast laundering Putin’s atrocities, Trump declared that he would let Russia “do whatever the hell they want” to NATO member states.

Carlson’s advocacy of the Kremlin’s positions is so consistent that when US Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell condemned Republican Party members spreading Russian disinformation to obstruct aid to Kyiv, he singled out Carlson as the chief media figure “demonizing” Ukraine to support Putin’s war. A six-month delay in Washington’s support greatly advantaged Moscow and cost Ukrainian lives. This week, Trump promised to cut aid to Kyiv if elected – support crucial to Ukraine’s survival and to stopping Putin’s imperialist ambitions from becoming our reality.

Australia’s support for Ukraine has remained steadfast, providing almost a billion dollars in aid since Russia’s full-scale invasion in late February 2022. In response, Putin placed hundreds of Australian government officials on the Kremlin’s “persona non grata” list. In contrast, Carlson has been celebrated by Russia for promoting its positions. In 2019, he told millions of viewers on his Fox show that he was “rooting for Russia.” After sanctions were imposed in response to Russia’s invasion, he downplayed it as a “border dispute,” in which Putin was the target of “permanent Washington’s hate.” Clips of his shows are amplified by Russian state TV and praised by Russian officials. Notably, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov used a United Nations press conference to express support for Carlson and criticise the US when Fox News abruptly cancelled Carlson’s show.

Carlson’s fawning for Putin and promotion of Kremlin propaganda bears an uncanny resemblance to Cold War foreign influence strategies illustrated in a 1987 book co-authored by Dinesh D’Souza and Gregory Fossedal. In “My Dear Alex: Letters from the KGB,” a fictional KGB agent named “Vladimir” advises his young protege to establish himself in the US by adopting arguments from American political debates. It makes a satirical commentary on sympathetic journalists repeating Kremlin narratives. Impeached US president Richard Nixon penned the book’s forward, emphasising its significance in highlighting the “war of ideas” between Moscow and the West. Ironically, the same year this book was published, Trump visited Moscow on a trip organised with Russian officials and a travel agency linked to the KGB. When he returned, Trump took out a full-page newspaper ad criticizing NATO and boasted of plans to run for US president. D’Souza, a far right creator of a conspiracy theory election denial film, is joining Carlson on his Australian tour.

Russia employs political warfare to expand its influence and destabilise democracies internationally, undermining public trust in institutions. This includes supporting pro-Russia far-right politicians, notably in the US, Trump. Carlson’s Australia tour, branded as a “Freedom Conference,” portrays Australia as authoritarian due to its pandemic policies and gun safety laws. Studies show that if the US had adopted Australia’s Covid-19 response, nearly a million lives could have been saved. Similarly, Australia-style gun laws in the US could eliminate America’s gun violence epidemic. However, Carlson, a leading “great replacement theory” advocate, has claimed since 2015 that “Australians have no freedom.” The tactics used to polarise American society are being applied in Australia. In the US, conspiracy theories labelling Trump’s opponents as “authoritarian” – promoted by speakers on this tour – led to violence, exemplified by the 6 January Capitol attack, which resulted in deaths and injuries, and endangered elected officials.

Carlson’s tour doesn’t just stop in Australia, he is waging pro-Kremlin international political warfare around the world. Earlier this year, he travelled to Canada to rally the far-right, after attacking Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over Ukraine support, and urging Americans to “liberate” their northern neighbour. On his return from Moscow, he spoke at the World Government Summit in Dubai, a haven for oligarchs linked to Putin. He has travelled to Hungary to support its far-right prime minister Viktor Orbán, a staunch Putin ally, and helped inaugurate Budapest’s first Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). After his Australia tour and the Republican National Convention in July, Carlson will start a 15-city tour across the US, joined by politicians like Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of the strongest Russian propaganda promoters in Congress. Greene has appeared at America First PAC events organised by Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist who rallied the crowd before her appearance saying, “Can we get a round of applause for Russia?” after which the crowd chanted “Putin! Putin!”

Carlson’s tour hits Australia at a time when a concerning network of community groups have been building a US-style “sovereign citizen” movement influencing elections with anti-government conspiracy theories. As Australian National University’s Strategic & Defence Studies Centre Fellow Matthew Sussex observed in a recent article on an abundance of Australian pro-Kremlin political and media personalities spreading false narratives like these, “the view that the West is to blame for the majority of global ills, that brutal dictators are misunderstood, and that mainstream media is culpable in pacifying the public is now increasingly common.”

A recent report by think-tank ISD Global found UAP conspiracy narratives and imagery are not local; many are US imports. During the referendum for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament, sovereign citizen and pro-Russian narratives featured among the No vote online discourse. AAP Factcheck identified disinformation claiming Russia and Australia were the only two sovereign countries left, and a vote for yes would cede sovereignty of Australian land. Examples of this post were eventually labelled by Facebook, but advocacy group Reset Australia found fact-checked misinformation was left to spread for weeks by social media platforms, which lack effective regulation down under.

These efforts, reminiscent of the Soviet Union’s KGB influence operations D’Souza once caricatured, demonstrate just how far today’s Russia’s media manipulation can extend its reach when repackaged as an American export worldwide. With ticket prices as high as $275, attending Carlson’s events isn’t cheap. But the real price Aussies will pay for his paranoid, divisive, and racist propaganda tour is the effect on Australian communities. Unfortunately, unlike D’Souza’s book, this is not satire; Carlson and his allies represent the greatest threat global fascism has posed since World War II. Thankfully, in a society known for its culture of mateship, early indications show that Australians are rejecting these polarising events, but how Australia responds to the ongoing threat remains crucial.

Dr. Emma L Briant is Associate Professor of News and Political Communication at Monash University. She is a leading researcher and expert on contemporary propaganda and information warfare, and its governance in an age of mass-surveillance. 

Alexandra S Chalupa is a Ukrainian American lawyer, political strategist, and expert in political warfare, currently pursuing a Master of International Security at the University of Sydney. She was among the first to raise alarm about Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. election. This led to retaliation from both Russia and Allie’s of Donald J. Trump, who targeted her with numerous lawfare operations rooted in Kremlin disinformation.

This article is published under a Creative Commons License and may be republished with attribution.