Tucker Carlson says grocery shopping in Moscow left him feeling shocked and “radicalized” about food prices and food inflation in the USA
By isabelle // 2024-02-18
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Tucker Carlson said that he felt “radicalized” after visiting a Moscow grocery store recently and seeing the prices of food there. He and his crew estimated that the groceries they filled their cart with – which represent a week’s worth of food – would cost around $400 and were shocked when they found out their total was just shy of $104. Footage of his shopping trip was released on his subscription platform, but users have shared excerpts across social media. He can be seen walking around the grocery store, picking up various products such as a bottle of wine, cheese puffs, bread and a bag of flour. He also draws attention to Western chocolate bars at the checkout line. In the video, he 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 are a good person or a bad person." Sanctions against Russia have made prices go up in the U.S., but they are affecting those who imposed them more than their target. In Biden’s America, people are dealing with shortages of staples like eggs and baby formula in some areas, while the extreme inflation and rising prices of foods like beef and milk have put them out of reach for some people. "You're wrecking people's lives and their country, 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." Many critics have pointed out, however, that there is a big disparity between Russian wages and American ones. Russian workers earn around four to six times less than Americans, so they do not have the buying power that Americans do when they visit Russia and other countries that have lower salaries. However, his grocery outing does illustrate the difference between what we hear about life in Russia and the reality on the ground. Although we are often told that the store shelves are empty there, he showed that is not the case – at least not in the store he visited. On the cost of living front, it is also worth noting that Russians have free healthcare and education, and the prices of common expenses like electricity and gas are much lower.

Tucker says Moscow is nicer than American cities in many ways

Just days before the grocery shopping video, Tucker appeared at a conference in Dubai, where he said that he considers Moscow to be superior to American cities in many ways. “It is so much nicer than any city in my country. I had no idea. It is so much cleaner, and safer and prettier, aesthetically – its architecture, food, and services – than in any city in the United States. And this is not ideological. How did that happen?” he asked. He also visited a Moscow subway station and said that he was “shocked” by how nice it was despite being built 70 years ago. “There’s no graffiti, there’s no filth, there are no foul smells, there are no bums or drug addicts or rapists or people waiting to push you onto the train tracks and kill you,” he reported in footage shared on X. He asked how Russia has nicer subways than anything you’ll find in the U.S., and when you compare the footage he shared of the Moscow subway with the NYC subway and those of other American cities, you have to admit he has a point. Moscow is indeed a nice city that is on par with some of Europe’s finest, although rural Russian cities are likely another story altogether. A lot of people on social media are taking Tucker to task for not acknowledging that groceries take up a higher percentage of most Russian people’s salaries. However, the point Tucker seems to be trying to make is that the mainstream media in America often distorts the images it presents of other places, and there is typically an agenda in doing so. Tucker has been reporting from Russia following his groundbreaking interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Sources for this article include: Rumble.com DailyMail.co.uk Twitter.com
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