The Daily Show host Jon Stewart roasted Tucker Carlson over his bizarre trip to Russia, where the former Fox News host fawned over a Russian grocery store.
Mr Carlson travelled to Moscow for a lengthy, free-wheeling interview with Vladimir Putin in which the Russian President gave him a lecture in history.
Following the interview, the ousted Fox News host took a trip to explore the country’s grocery stores, filming it and posting it online.
Mr Carlson was completely besotted with the idea that you use cash on a shopping cart, calling it “an incentive to return it and not just bring it to your homeless encampment. OK!”
Mr Stewart brought up Mr Carlson’s bizarre trip on his show on Monday night.
“I know I’ve said this before, you’re such a d***,” he said, after a bewildered pause.
“I didn’t realise America’s homeless problem is caused entirely by easy access to grocery carts.”
It wasn’t just Mr Carlson’s comments about homelessness that faced the scrutiny of The Daily Show host.
Mr Carlson also said that he been “radicalised” when he discovered how much less things cost in Russia compared to the United States.
“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,” Mr Carlson said in the footage inside the Russian supermarket.
“Radicalised. And it will radicalise you unless you understand basic economics,” Mr Stewart responded to this statement.
“See, $104 for groceries sounds like a great bargain unless you realise Russians earn less than $200 a week, but that the kind of context that a – what did you call yourself earlier – a journalist would have provided.”
As of November last year, the average salary in Russia was 73,383 rubles a month – about $793, according to Trading Economics.
Additionally, more than 60 per cent of Russians “spend about half of their monthly income on food,” Tass, a Russian news agency, reported in July 2021.
“But here’s the reality, you f***ing know all this, because you aren’t as dumb as your face would have us believe,” Mr Stewart said to Mr Carlson.
“Perhaps if your handlers had allowed, you would have seen there was a hidden fee to your cheap groceries and orderly streets. Ask Alexei Navalny or any of his supporters,” he added, before rolling clips of Navalny supporters being reportedly arrested in Russia for honouring the recently deceased opposition leader.
Mr Stewart said that Mr Carlson is missing out on the fact that the “literal price of freedom” is what separates the US’ “urinal-caked chaotic subways and your candelabra’d beautiful subways,” referring to the right-wing media personality’s earlier adoration of the Russian metro stations in another clip.
The Daily Show host went on to explain why he thinks that Mr Carlson is pushing his followers to see Russia in a different light.
“Here’s why: It’s because the old civilisational battle was communism versus capitalism, that is what drove the world since World War II. Russia was the enemy then, but now, they think the battle is woke versus unwoke. And in that fight, Putin is an ally to the right. He’s their friend,” Mr Stewart said.
“Unfortunately, he is also a brutal and ruthless dictator. So now they have to make Americans a little more comfortable with that. I mean, liberty is nice, but have you seen Russia’s shopping carts?”