In an interview with Sputnik yesterday, U.S. statesman Chas Freeman said, “For anyone who has made the effort to listen to what President Putin has said, as opposed to automatically tuning out, there is very little that is surprising in this interview.” But Freeman praised the interview, saying: “Tucker Carlson has done the American public an enormous favor by offering it an opportunity to break past the wall of censorship by our oligopoly media and hear Mr. Putin directly.”