Senate Republican rips Tucker Carlson over Russia grocery store trip

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) ripped Tucker Carlson on Thursday for the conservative pundit’s recent praise of Russia President Vladimir Putin following a Moscow trip the commentator took that included a stop at a local grocery store.

“Ah yes, Russia is so much better than the U.S. with all those cheap groceries and lavish subway stations,” Tillis wrote in a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, mocking Carlson. “The Soviets had a term for people like Tucker: useful idiots.”

The Republican was responding to a video Carlson had posted of a trip he took to a grocery store in Moscow in which he praised the country for the price of its groceries and what he said is superior cleanliness compared to the United States.

Earlier this week, the pundit praised Moscow as “so much nicer than any city in my country.”

Carlson last week published a wide-ranging interview with Putin, who used the two-hour conversation to spread propaganda about Moscow’s war effort in Ukraine and admonish the United States and other Western countries.

Carlson, the former Fox News host, has launched a show on X and started a media company of his own since leaving the network, publishing interviews and segments with leading figures on the right.