Tucker Carlson is drawing ridicule after expressing wonder at a commonplace practice in Europe – the use of locks on shopping carts – which is increasingly prevalent in the US as European supermarket chains expand stateside.
Following his admiring interview with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, which verged on a two-hour monologue by the president, the former Fox News host extended his Russian tour to commend a country now widely condemned internationally for its invasion of Ukraine.
In a “TC Shorts” video posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, Mr. Carlson is seen unlocking a shopping cart at a Russian grocery store.
“All right, here we go. So I guess you put in 10 rubles here and you get it back when you put the cart back – so it’s free, but there’s an incentive to return it and not just bring it to your homeless encampment. OK!” Mr. Carlson remarked as he retrieved the cart.
His fascination with the practice immediately drew mockery, the left always has to jump on any opportunity to discredit Carlson’s opinions.
Florida Congressman Maxwell Alejandro Frost quipped, “Dude has never been to an Aldi’s.”
The German grocery store chain operates more than 12,000 shops across 18 countries.
“Fantastic tech advancement! Guess who hasn’t been in an airport anytime in the last 40 years?” musician Chris Stein commented.
Former Republican Congressman Joe Walsh added, “In other news today, @TuckerCarlson is in a Russian grocery store somewhere in Moscow admiring their shopping carts. It’s been quite a fall for Tucker, hasn’t it?”
Historian Joshua Zeitz humorously remarked, “It’s been a strange few years, but I did not have ‘Tucker Carlson Defects to Russia’ on my 2024 bingo card. He joins great western patriots like Kim Philby in starting a wonderful, prosperous life in Moscow.”
Part of the infamous Cambridge Five spy ring, Mr. Philby was a British intelligence officer and Soviet Union spy who lived in Moscow until his death in 1988.
Former Virginia Democratic House of Delegates candidate Jessica Anderson questioned, “Has Tucker never been to an IKEA?? Or any European nation before.”
During his grocery store visit, Mr. Carlson reflected, “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, whether you’re a good person or a bad person, you’re wrecking people’s lives in 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 radicalise you against our leaders. That’s how I feel anyway – radicalised. We’re not making any of this up, by the way at all.”
In July 2021, the Russian news agency Tass reported that “more than 60 per cent of Russians spend about half of their monthly income on food”.
The average salary in Russia was 73,383 rubles a month as of November last year – about $793, according to Trading Economics.
