Tucker Carlson-Vladimir Putin interview exchange on U.S.-Mexico border was fabricated

In a two-hour interview from Moscow, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson and Russian President Vladimir Putin talked about the war with Ukraine, relations with the United States and artificial intelligence.

Some social media users highlighted a quote from Putin saying the U.S.-Mexico border issue amused him. But that didn’t happen.

A Feb. 6 Instagram post shared a screenshot of an X post that claimed to show the text of an exchange between Carlson and Putin.

"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 its own. It's quiet laughable but deadly," the post said, misspelling "quite."

(Screengrab from Instagram)

The Instagram post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

This exchange between Carlson and Putin was fabricated. The X post shared in the Instagram post was dated Feb. 4 — four days before Carlson released the Putin interview.

Carlson said in a video shared Feb. 6 on X that he was in Moscow to interview Putin and "we’ll be doing that soon." The Associated Press reported Feb. 7 that the Kremlin confirmed the interview had taken place. The interview was then posted Feb. 8 on Carlson’s website and X.

iSource News, the X account that originally shared the fabricated exchange, has deleted that post. On Feb. 5, the account said it deleted the post because of "copyright claims."

We rate the claim that Putin said in an interview with Carlson that he finds the U.S.-Mexico border issue "ironically amusing" Pants on Fire!