I mean he could have done that but as Putin said in the interview: it’s pointless to try to engage in the propaganda war against the West’s narrative on their own media turf. In essence with this interview Putin showed that he refuses to play the West’s game. The reaction this interview got from the anti-Russia crowd shows just how much this strategy rattles and confuses them: half of them are screaming about how this was a big propaganda win for Putin and how Carlson needs to be sanctioned and banned, while the other half are busy gloating over how badly Putin failed at delivering effective propaganda to a western audience which has little interest or patience for this kind of long winded history-heavy lecture about a part of the world they already know and care very little about (though i’m sure going forward we’re gonna see plenty short and snappily edited clips pop up of the parts of this interview that actually do appeal to western audiences).