Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin accidentally retweeted a screenshot from one of Tucker Carlson’s monologues about Russian President Vladimir Putin on social media.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told Politico on Monday that the retweet was “a fat finger mistake by one of our social media guys. He undid it immediately.”
The original tweet included a screenshot from an episode of Carlson’s Fox News show, and the chyron read, “Putin just wants to keep his western border secure.”
FULL COVERAGE OF THE WAR IN UKRAINE
Carlson, a prime-time host on Fox News, has made headlines in recent weeks for his statements about Putin, who last week launched an invasion of Ukraine.
.@PentagonPresSec to me: “It was a fat finger mistake by one of our social media guys. He undid it immediately.” https://t.co/IcRzlZVbCG
— Alex Ward (@alexbward) February 28, 2022
Russian troops have sought to capture Kyiv, among other strategic cities, though they have faced more resistance than expected, according to a senior Defense Department official who said they’re about 25 kilometers from the capital. Fighting in Kyiv and in other cities is ongoing, while neither side has established air superiority.
“What is this really about?” Carlson asked last week. “Why do I hate Putin so much? Has Putin ever called me a racist?”
“Has he threatened to get me fired for disagreeing with him?” he continued. “Has he shipped every middle-class job in my town to Russia? Did he manufacture a worldwide pandemic that wrecked my business and kept me indoors for two years? Is he teaching my children to embrace racial discrimination? Is he making fentanyl? Is he trying to snuff out Christianity? Does he eat dogs?”
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More recently, Carlson acknowledged that “what Russia has done is awful, but we can make it worse,” and he put “blame” on Putin.
