Jon Stewart savages 'd*ck' Tucker Carlson's 'unquestioning propaganda' for Russia and rips the ex-Fox host for cosying up to 'brutal and ruthless' Vladimir Putin

Jon Stewart put the boot into Tucker Carlson, branding the former Fox star a ‘d***’ for his softball interview with the ‘brutal and ruthless’ Russian president Vladimir Putin.

The conservative commentator has faced a ferocious backlash for his cozy sit-down with the dictator which intensified after Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was found dead on Friday.

It emerged on Tuesday that Carlson's interview in Moscow took place on the day  dual Russian-American ballerina Ksenia Karelina was arrested on treason charges for donating $50 to a Ukrainian charity.

On Monday night, the Daily Show host did not pull his punches as he accused Carlson of ‘capitulation to power’.

‘I know I've said this before, but you're such a d***," Stewart said.

‘Disguise your deception and capitulation to power as noble and moral and based in freedom.’ 

Jon Stewart revived his decades-old feud with former Fox host Tucker Carlson on Monday night's Daily Show on Comedy Central 

The right-wing commentator was the first western journalist to interview Vladimir Putin since Russia's invasion of Ukraine nearly two years ago

Carlson has faced an intensifying backlash since the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in custody on Friday

Carlson has been on the back foot since agreeing to Putin’s first interview with a Western media figure since the February 2022 invasion.

He described Navalny's suspicious death in an Arctic penal colony as ‘barbaric and awful’, adding that ‘no decent person would defend it’.

But former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson branded him a ‘fawning stooge’ for offering Putin an easy platform and his lack of rigorous questioning.

Carlson attracted more than 200 million views on X alone for his report which included glowing tributes to the Russian way of life as he visited local food stores and the Moscow subway.

Originally broadcast on his web channel Tucker Carlson Network he began with an explanation of his reasons for the interview.

‘First, because it's our job, we're in journalism,’ Carlson said, ‘It's our duty to inform people.’

‘Step one, lie about what your job is,’ Stewart remarked as he played the clip.

‘Step two, lie about what your duty is.’

Tucker's interview with Putin, was held on Tuesday in Moscow on February 6 and broadcast two days later  

The interview saw Putin control the narrative and make a series of claims about his invasion of Ukraine . Carlson was slammed by world leaders for being a 'fawning stooge' during the chat

Vladimir Putin during his sit-down interview with Tucker Carlson 

The video drew widespread ridicule from people online, as many pointed out the disparity between the average wage in Russia - which is the equivalent of $9072 - or 6.5 times less than the average US salary of $59,428

The interview in Moscow took place on the day that dual Russian-American ballerina Ksenia Karelina was arrested for donating $50 to a Ukrainian charity

She has since appeared blindfolded in court as she arrived to face charges of treason

‘Americans have a right to know all they can about a way they're implicated in,’ Carlson continued, ‘freedom of speech is our birthright.’

‘Kudos, sensei, that was deep,’ Stewart shot back, before summing up: ‘Disguise your deception and capitulation to power as noble and moral and based in freedom.’

Stewart hosted the Comedy Central show between 1999 and 2016, returning earlier this month to replace Trevor Noah.

The liberal comedian and the right-wing broadcaster have played out a decades-long feud since Stewart also called him a 'd***' on an infamous episode of Carlson’s Crossfire program in 2004.

Stewart tore into his bow-tied host, accusing him of 'hurting America' with ‘partisan hackery’.

'You're doing theater, when you should be doing debate, which would be great,' he added.

'What you do is not honest.’

On Monday’s show he ridiculed Carlson’s praise of Russian public spaces as 'nicer than anything in our country’.

Carlson was impressed by a shopping cart that requires a coin to be inserted as a deposit that is returned when the cart goes back.

‘So, it's free, but there's an incentive to return it and not just bring it to your homeless encampment,’ he told his viewers.

‘I didn't realize that America's homeless problem was caused by easy access to shopping carts,' Stewart responded.

Carlson praised Moscow’s low grocery prices and the quality of its fresh-baked bread.

‘Coming to a Russian grocery, the heart of evil, and seeing what things cost and how people live, it will radicalize you,’ he promised.

Carlson did not challenge Putin’s bizarre assertion that Poland ‘pushed’ Nazi Germany into starting the Second World War by not handing over its city of Gdansk.

And he did not mention Navalny who was poisoned by Russian agents before being sentenced to 19 years in jail, and whose body is currently being held for chemical analysis.

But it was Carlson’s praise of tightly regimented Russian society that provoked Stewart’s fiercest mockery.

Here's the reality, you know all this, because you aren’t as dumb as your face would have us believe,' he chided.

'Perhaps if your handlers had allowed, you would have seen there was a hidden fee to your cheap groceries and orderly streets - ask Aleksei Navalny or any of his supporters.

‘The difference between our urinal-caked subways and your candelabra'd beautiful subways is the literal price of freedom,’ he claimed.

Stewart famously clashed with Carlson on a 2004 episode of CNN's Crossfire, during which the outspoken Democrat slammed Carlson for 'doing theater, when you should be doing debate'

‘The old civilizational battle was communism vs capitalism, that's what drove the world since World War Two.

‘Russia was the enemy then, but now they think the battle is woke versus unwoke and in that fight, Putin is an ally to the right.

‘He's their friend. Unfortunately, he is also a brutal and ruthless dictator.

‘Liberty is nice,’ he added, ‘But have you seen Russia's shopping carts?’