After his interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin, which triggered Western progressives, Tucker Carlson released short videos of him taking a trip to a grocery store in the country and then heading into the Kievskaya Metro station in Moscow. Of the former, Carlson said he felt “radicalized” by the experience—seeing a supermarket fully stocked, two years into sanctions, and food coming in at a fraction of the price as it does in the U.S. The criticism was intense, with a Republican senator even calling him a “useful idiot,” while a community note on the video reminded that more than 60 percent of the population spends half of their salary on food. Supporters emphasized, however, that Carlson’s point was simply that nothing seemed to have changed even during the war, whereas in the U.S. prices of goods shoot up “when something goes awry here.”
While much ink was spilled complaining about the grocery store trip, it was nothing compared to the criticism he faced after going into the subway station. He explained in that video that he was not in any way endorsing Joseph Stalin, who built the station more than 80 years ago, or Putin. Again, he was just pointing out that after so many decades, what his team saw “shocked” them.
“There's no graffiti, there's no filth, 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. No, it's perfectly clean and orderly,” he said in the video’s introduction.
“And how do you explain that?” he asked. “How does Russia, a country, we're told is a gas station with nuclear weapons have a subway station that normal people use to get to work and home every single day that's nicer than anything in our country.” His point wasn’t to speculate but simply to pose the question.
TC Shorts: The Moscow Subway Station pic.twitter.com/xX8qRrda3X
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) February 14, 2024
If you didn’t view the short video yet, it’s worth seeing what he’s talking about. Like the grocery store one—it prompted fierce reactions stateside, with many pointing out “it was designed as an instrument of propaganda.”
During an interview with Glenn Beck, the former Fox News host discussed his trip, explained his purpose in going and checking out the metro station.
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TUCKER CARLSON: Walter Durante, a New York Times correspondent in Russia in the 1930s, denied the existence of the Ukrainian Holodomor by Stalin, he denied the show trials of 1937 and 1938 and the terror that was happening. Those were lies. He told lies and that is why his Pulitzer Prize was pulled from him posthumously.
I told the truth in order to shame our leaders. The subway station I showed was built by Stalin in 1939. Stalin was probably the worst person in human history. That was over 80 years ago and it's still in perfect shape. That's the point. Look at what Moscow has and compare it to what we have. You have to ask yourself, this is an indictment of our leaders. I would recommend every single one of your viewers to go spend a week in Moscow. Not because you love Russia, but because you love your own country. And compare that city, the largest city in Europe, 13 million people, to the city you live in. Which is in better shape?
Actually it's a radicalizing indictment of our rapidly declining standard of living and the horrible mismanagement of our leaders. Why don't we have a subway like that in any American city? [...]
I would never pretend to be the voice of the working class, I am the opposite... I live in a working-class area now and I love the people there, but that is not my world -- I am motivated by loathing of the people in charge. The one thing I know a lot about are the people who populate the ruling class because I spent my whole life with them. I'm not against ruling classes, every society has one, someone has to be in charge, there is always an elect that run everything, there are always Brahmins and there always will be. I'm not a populist in that sense. I am just against incompetent, selfish, stupid, nasty people being in charge. And that's exactly who we have.
I am so mad about it because I know exactly who they are. And so when you're telling me that Antony Blinken is a statesman, I'm like, no he's not. He's a low-IQ political hack who is acting for like personal reasons have nothing to do with the welfare of the United States, in his Ukraine policy. And I know that. I know them all.
I lived next to them my whole life, 35 years in DC, so it is like, I'm not fooled by that. I know how mediocre they are because I've been around them my whole life... I don't want their stupid little merit badges, I couldn't have more contempt for them and I am old enough now that why wouldn't I just say it? (Transcript via RCP)
When @TuckerCarlson interviewed Vladimir Putin, journalism suddenly became a CRIME in the eyes of other journalists. So, I sat down with Tucker to hear his side of the story. pic.twitter.com/opRfWjMNlW
— Glenn Beck (@glennbeck) February 21, 2024
