Did a post on social media from iSource News contain an authentic quote from Russian President Vladimir Putin answering a question from Tucker Carlson about the U.S. southern border? No, that's not true: The timeline of events makes it impossible and proves that the quote is fabricated because iSource News published the purported exchange on February 4, 2024 -- before the planned interview between Carlson and Putin took place. On February 6, 2024, Carlson posted a video on X saying he would be doing the interview soon. On the morning of February 7, 2024, the Associated Press reported that a Kremlin spokesman confirmed that the interview had taken place.
The post by iSource News that contained the fabricated exchange was posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, on February 4, 2024, but has since been deleted. A video (archived here) with a screenshot of that post was posted on TikTok on approximately February 5, 2024 (the exact date could not be ascertained) by @chavezj4f with the caption:
Right!! Qnd we aren't suppose to say anything about it!
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Wed Feb 07 19:29:01 2024 UTC)
The text of the screenshot reads:
iSource News
@isource news
TUCKER: Are you following what's happening on the US southern border?PUTIN: Actually yes. It's part of my daily briefing. We Russians find it ironically amusing your Congress will spend billions protecting foreign borders but neglect it's own. It's quiet laughable but deadly
22:12 04 Feb 24 758 Views
In a February 5, 2024, post on X, @isource_news gave a fabricated reason why the "transcript" of the purported interview would be deleted (archived here). It said:
iSN™ [[[ NOTICE TO OUR READERS ]]] **Due to copyright claims the Tucker Carlson Interview Transcript Of President Putin Will Be Deleted as of 9:00 PM Monday, Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) **Chief Legal Officer iSN™
Former Fox News anchor Carlson, who now has his own media company, posted a video on X (archived here) on February 6, 2024, that set the timeline. He said he had not yet conducted the interview. He said:
We're in Moscow tonight. We're here to interview the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin. We'll be doing that soon.
(Source: X screenshot taken on Wed Feb 07 18:24:14 2024 UTC)
A February 7, 2024, Associated Press Article (archived here) said about the interview:
Russian President Vladimir Putin has been interviewed by former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, the Kremlin confirmed Wednesday. It is Putin's first interview to a Western media figure since his full-scale invasion of Ukraine two years ago.
The AP article also relayed information from the head of programming at Tucker Carlson Network (TCN) that Carlson's interview with Putin would be posted on February 8, 2024.
iSource news published another purported transcript from the yet-to-be-released interview in a 14-post thread (archived here) on February 7, 2024.
