Tucker Carlson Says Biden Wants Ordinary Russians 'To Pay the Price'

Fox News host Tucker Carlson said President Joe Biden and Congress want ordinary Russians—including "6-year-old girls and their 80-year-old grandmothers"—"to pay the price" for Russian President Vladimir Putin's war on Ukraine.

In the Wednesday installment of his nightly program, Carlson said that Biden has redirected "the full force" of America's federal government and its many intelligence, defense and law enforcement agencies "to avenge the invasion of Ukraine."

"There is no way to liberate Ukraine by force," Carlson said. "All we can do is punish the Russians for what they've already done."

"So the Russian economy is being destroyed. It's destroyed," he continued. "Imagine living in a country where the currency drops 30 points in a single day. What would that feel like? Well, 143 million Russians now know. They're much poorer than they were two days ago."

"Only a relative handful of those Russians had any role in the invasion of Ukraine," Carlson added. "Many of them opposed it, but all of them are being hurt as their economy comes apart."

Carlson sarcastically added, "And that's fine, because they all deserve it."

In Carlson's attempt to prove his allegation of Biden's desire to hurt ordinary Russians, Carlson referenced a now-deleted tweet published on Wednesday morning by Michael McFaul, ex-President Barack Obama's former ambassador to Moscow who now teaches at Stanford University.

McFaul's deleted tweet stated, "There are no more 'innocent' 'neutral' Russians anymore. Everyone has to make a choice—support or oppose this war. The only way to end this war is if 100,000s, not thousands, protest against this senseless war. Putin can't arrest you all!"

It's unclear whether Biden or any members of Congress share McFaul's sentiment. The U.S. is one of many Western countries that have placed economic and diplomatic sanctions on Russia to end its invasion and discourage such aggression in the future.

"Putin may have given the orders to invade Ukraine, but 6-year-old girls in St. Petersburg should pay the price for it because they deserve it," Carlson sarcastically said of McFaul's tweet. "Their 80-year-old grandmothers deserve it too. In order to fight tyranny, the United States must embrace collective punishment. Hurt the children to bring justice. These are our values, because Vladimir Putin is a moral monster," he derisively added.

"Now, these are not traditional Western concepts of justice, but Joe Biden wholeheartedly endorses them and so does a dominant bipartisan coalition in the United States Congress," Carlson said.

By Wednesday afternoon, McFaul issued an apology via Twitter for his deleted tweet. He wrote that he regretted his use of imprecise language in his initial tweet. "But I have no regrets about the argument I was trying to make, however imperfectly," he wrote.

McFaul said that he was merely echoing an argument made by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Russian political prisoner Alexei Navalny, Ukrainian freedom fighters and Russian democrats that the war will only end if Russian citizens exercise direct civil disobedience.

"These same courageous people are saying there can be no fence-sitting anymore. People in Russia have to take a stand," McFaul wrote. "[Russian society's] passivity regarding Putin helped create the permissive conditions of his dictatorship and now this war."

Carlson then wondered whether the sanctions would result in the eventual overthrow of Russia's government, leaving the country mired in violent disputes like Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan.

"Joe Biden didn't address any of that last night; he was too deep into the World War II fantasies with himself playing [Franklin D. Roosevelt]," Carlson claimed, invoking the 32nd U.S. president, who oversaw the nation's involvement in World War II.

However, in his State of the Union address, Biden said, "Let me be clear, our forces are not engaged and will not engage in conflict with Russian forces in Ukraine."

Newsweek contacted Fox News for comment.