Tucker talking about Russia 🇷🇺

Now, Russia's the biggest country in the world. Huge parts of Russia are fundamentally Russian. Not a lot of Western influence. They were that way 500 years ago. They'll be that way 500 years from now. But Moscow is very different. Moscow was the biggest city in Europe, actually, 13 million people, by far the biggest city in this country and a very international city of fashion center, financial center. And Russia's, needless to say, center of Western retail culture. And all of that ended, in 2022, two years ago. So we thought we would take a look at what happened next. And McDonald's seemed like a pretty good way to do it. McDonald's, the first McDonald's opened in Russia in Pushkin Square in Moscow in 1990. And by happenstance, my own father was there. He was an employee of the U.S. government, and he came to Russia to see McDonald's open. And at the time, I remember it vividly. I was in college. This was considered a triumph of the West, over the East. The real end of the Cold War is when McDonald's, the most famous retail outlet in the United States, opened in the capital city of our great enemy, Russia. And this was a triumph of the West and its values over communism. So that life cycle turned out to last for exactly 30 years, from 19, 32 years, 1990 to 2022. And then it closed. But what happened? Well, it never really closed. It just became Russian. McDonald's franchises in Moscow were bought by a Russian businessman out of Siberia and renamed a Russian name that we can't possibly pronounce, but that translates to Tasty, That's It. And the buildings look the same from the outside. The golden arches are dimmed, but apparently not much else is different. So we've come here this morning in downtown Moscow to try the fair at Tasty That's It, and render judgment. And we're going to do that right now. I must say, I feel good in this weather. I ordered, I'm embarrassed, I ordered a cheeseburger, I ordered two cheeseburgers, large coke, large fries, and a chocolate cake. We're back in the van. We've just come back from the ersatz Moscow McDonald's Tasty That's It. And first, the price. Okay, I'll admit, I have not been to a fast food place in quite some time. Trying to preserve my girlish figure also doesn't make me feel good. And I'm 54, so I probably shouldn't be eating that crap, but, so I'm not exactly current on the prices, but here's what it costs in Moscow. 647 Rubles. That is exactly $7, $7.05, I think. And for that we got two cheeseburgers, large fries, large cola, Coke knockoff, and a piece of chocolate cake. Just couldn't resist, is that healthy? No, I should say Putin banned GMO foods in Russia four years ago. Which is interesting. I didn't ask about that. I probably should have, but so maybe we're in a little better shape. I'm not sure. Anyway, here's what we have for that. Let's first go to the fries. McDonald's most famous product, the fries. All right. These are Tasty That's It, Siberian owned Russian fries. Everybody knows what a McDonald's French frie tastes like. So it's not going to be hard to assess. Well, That's excellent. Totally the same. We just walked all the way a block in the snow, back to the truck with these things, and they're still good. Okay. Fries are a winner. Now, I got recognizable foods. Like, every American has had a McDonald's cheeseburger. Okay, that's a Siberian cheeseburger in the husk of a McDonald's outlet. All right, now, as in America, I'm not going to open it up to see what's inside, because, like, you don't really want to know. I'm just going to eat it. All right. Ready? Oh. Excellent. Exactly the same. My first thought is I should be not eating this shit. But I like it. And I think they have those little chopped onions like they do in the United States. All right, I'm going to finish that off camera because it's disgusting to watch a man eat. But before I stop, I'm going to go right to dessert. I'm not going to eat it. I'm just going to show you what Tasty That's It serves in Moscow. A piece of chocolate cake. And I'm not going to. I'm not going to eat this in front of you either, because that would be super degrading. And I'm not going there even for my love of the internet. But I am going to sniff it, which will give me some sense of its flavor. And then off camera I'll assess and let you know. And it smells great. It smells great. So look, I'm not saying one is better than the other. I'm just trying to let you know what life under sanctions, once Tony Blinken has written your country out of the civilized world, how do you live? Not bad. All right. I'm just finishing Mcbreakfast, which was really Mclunch. And I gotta say, it was Mcawesome. It really was the non-GMO version. And so we're trying to think about what else to do in Moscow to illustrate what life under sanctions is like. What would it be like to live in a society where all the Western brands are forced to leave, and you're left with all these stores that used to say Prada or McDonald's or Starbucks, and none of them still do, but they're still serving knockoffs of those products. And so we thought, well, let's go to the Starbucks, which is now called, lets get the logo here, Stars. Do we have that? So my producers, who are geniuses and great guys, Justin Wells and Benno Kass and Kyle Rothenberg is holding the camera. Their TV producers like, let's go to this new Starbucks, the Stars. And then we're kind of talking this through and we thought, you know, Starbucks is so awful. Like, not only is the company preachy and stupid, but the product itself, the core product, the coffee is like urine. So why would we go there? Even if you change the name to Stars, it's not worth going there. And so we're going to pass on that, but we're going to do so in the total confidence bordering on religious faith that whatever came after Starbucks is better than Starbucks, because how could it not be?