Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson drew criticism from the left and right this week for a video of himself touring a Russian grocery store while on a visit to interview Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin, where Carlson said that what he saw there radicalized him against America’s leaders.
“So a long-standing feature, maybe the longest-standing feature of Cold War propaganda in the West was the Soviet grocery store,” Carlson said in the nearly four-minute video. “No products, no choices. Shoddily made things. And it wasn’t actually propaganda. It was real. And you can look up the pictures on the internet if you want.”
Tucker Carlson We've been told sanctions on Russia have had a devastating effect on its economy. We visited a grocery store in Moscow and found a very different situation. pic.twitter.com/oPF1WUE6Ec
— 1776 (@TheWakeninq) February 15, 2024
“So we thought it would be interesting to take a look at a contemporary, modern-day, 2024 Russian grocery store two years into sanctions,” Carlson said in the video. After filling a grocery cart with food staples a family would need to live on for a week, Carlson appears stunned in the video to find the total checkout price is $104 and not the $400 his team guessed it would cost.
“I went from amused to legitimately angry,” Carlson said. “If you take people’s standard of living and you tank it through filth and crime and inflation, and they literally can’t buy the groceries they want at that point, maybe it matters less what you say, or whether you’re a good person or a bad person. You’re wrecking people’s lives in their country.”
The Tucker Carlson grocery price video (Russia is so cheap you'll be radicalized, folks!) is tragic & funny.
My guy, the grocery bill you're rhapsodizing about is ~SEVENTY PERCENT of a median Russian weekly salary (13.4k RUB) 🧵
Data: https://t.co/Jsejlh1Kkz pic.twitter.com/EcotTnPHgw
— John Scott-Railton (@jsrailton) February 15, 2024
Referencing the fast-rising cost of living in the U.S. since the pandemic, Carlson said he felt radicalized, “And that’s what our leaders have done to us. And coming to a Russian grocery store, the heart of evil, and seeing what things cost and how people live. It will radicalize you against our leaders. That’s how I feel, anyway. Radicalized. We’re not making any of this up.”
Food prices continue to rise in the fourth year of Biden’s economy, even after inflation cooled in January, so it costs more for Americans to eat away from home and live off groceries. Food prices could affect the election this year, with an overwhelming majority of voters reporting they most felt the impact of inflation through the rising cost of food.
FOX: "Inflation during the Biden administration is still being felt across the country."
Overall inflation is up nearly 18%
Food is up more than 30%
Rents are up nearly 19%
Energy is up nearly 33%
Electricity is up 27% pic.twitter.com/K1vsnmTipL— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) January 14, 2024
