USA TODAY says government-owned grocery stores have "failed everywhere else it's been tried." The Defense Commissary Agency operates 235 of them.

Verdict: false, truth score 0.15 — and the real failures the column never mentions are the more interesting story.

On August 3, 2026, USA TODAY columnist Nicole Russell closed a column on Mamdani's N.Y.C. Groceries plan — five municipal stores, $70 million in capital funds, a 30% discount on a defined basket — with an absolute: this has failed everywhere. The record it describes is genuinely mixed, not empty.

Against the claim: 235 DeCA commissaries as of September 30, 2024, with a savings mandate written into 10 U.S.C. § 2484 at roughly 23.7% system-wide; St. Paul, Kansas, city-owned since 2013 and running about 3% profit; and the Cato Institute, hostile to the plan, forecasting a "bo ...