The Daily Show: Ears Edition - Will Republicans Divorce Trump Over Xi Embrace? Probably Not | Evan Gershkovich

Episode Date: September 29, 2026

Jon Stewart examines the limits of Republican allegiance to Trump after his weekend of wooing President Xi with granite, helipads, and an exclusive tour of the White House ballroom. Will MAGA loyalists denounce Trump's offer to sell weapons to China, America's supposed enemy, or is their frustration with the president a Susan Collins-style display of feigned outrage? Wall Street Journal foreign correspondent Evan Gershkovich joins Jon to talk about his new memoir, “This Cursed Beautiful Land: A Russian-American Story.” Gershkovich, who spent 16 months imprisoned in Russia on false espionage charges, breaks down how a source, a second meeting, and a Putin pep talk to the FSB landed him in Russian prison. He discusses growing up in a Russian-speaking home, what drew him to reporting in Russia, life pre-imprisonment, and how he ultimately became a bargaining chip in a Putin-led prisoner swap scheme. He also weighs in on what a post-Putin Russia might look like and the totalitarian warning signs he sees in the U.S. -- To get simple, online access to personalized, affordable care for ED, Hair Loss, Weight Loss, and more, visit https://Hims.com/dailyshow -- The Daily Show airs weeknights at 11/10c on Comedy Central. Stream full episodes on Paramount+ Follow TDS: YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Evan Gershkovich held in a Russian prison for 16 months, which may or may not come up during the interview. I'll probably bring that. I don't know what we're going to talk about. But first, many of you remember, last week, a young man by the name of Donald Trump picked up a young man by the name of Xi Jinping, Chinese president, at the airport for a pivotal three-day visit to Washington. Now, as with any monumental meeting of superpowers, with profound repercussions for global safety and stability, it began with house tour. Have you seen my pictures? Do you guys have pictures? Have you guys seen our outdoor carpet? Do you guys have outdoor carpet? Have you seen our sky? Do you have a sky? It's what? Oh, do you see that lady with the face? Yeah. Do you think she's pretty? Oh, good. Yeah, she's very pretty. What a genuine thumbs up.

It's the thumbs up you give when your friends show you their kids' artwork. Oh. Madison made that all out of macaroni. Trump spent most of Xi's White House visit just pointing at shit. While Xi did his best effort to pretend to be impressed. Although I'm sure they talked about issues

of national importance. He likes Granite. He's an expert on stone, aside from many other things. And he loves good granite. Does he? Does he love good granite? Is that his, I love good granite face?

Because it looks like his, I'd rather be standing in front of a tank in a square face. Yeah, look it up. President Trump, I'm sure you're proud of your new circular granite helicopter parking spot. But just so you know, this is Shenzhen, China. they've got a fully autonomous magnetic levitation train pretty sure he's not blown away by carved rock in shape of circle wait you know China did

used to work in rock about 3,000 years ago I'm pretty sure Xi Jinping is is not like this used to be grass and now it's rock we have so much to learn from your people but listen I'm sure he wants to be As long as Trump understands the seriousness of the competition between our two nations and is diligent in not undermining America's national security.

I mean, national security is the whole reason we're paying $600 million for this f***ing ballroom, right? So you'll keep that behind the curtain, yeah? As a special treat in honor of President Xi and Madam Pung, I'd like to invite everyone in the room to visit through that beautiful curtain in the back. the new ballroom that you've heard about, you'll be the first people to step foot on that. Maybe Trump's just trying to sell Xi Jinping on renting the ballroom out for his next big function. I don't know. Jewish, surprising. Xi Jinping.

Who'd have thought? Probably changed his name. Anyway, surprising how lighthearted their interactions seemed to be given recent developments. China sent 1,300 shipments of drone and missile parts to Iran from the start of the year through the end of June. China has been sending weapons to Iran. Did China supplying Iran with weapons come up at all? The U.S. Ambassador to China claims President Trump offered to sell American weapons to China.

It only came up as an opportunity. I got to say, that sounds like bullshit. Unless I hear this from the actual mouth of the U.S. ambassador to China, I do not believe it. President Trump continues to say, hey, we sell, to other people around the world. He actually asked President C. Would he like to buy some at one point? What the of America even stay on the map sometimes?

I don't even... How do we not just slide into the sea? All right. I had to have misheard that. I got to hear from the president himself. I won't believe it. Did Trump really offer to sell weapons to China? Is that accurate?

Did you make such a suggestion? To China? To China. Do you mean to Taiwan? No, to China. That's what he said. I never heard of that one. I'm going to have to ask him.

You mean, we're going to sell? Now they probably like to bite because we do make better equipment than that, so maybe it's a good idea. He totally fucking offered them weapons. Oh my God, you can almost see Trump trying to do the math in his head. Well, if Iran beats us with weapons that we make, it's kind of like we won the war. This is a question. I seem to remember the Republican Party used to frown on the idea of selling weapons to communist enemies who are supplying said weapons to other enemies we are currently at war with.

Does anybody on that side have an opinion on this summit? President Trump with a lavish welcome for Chinese President Xi Jinping. Some Republicans now sounding the alarm. Getting some pushback from members of his own party. Not happy with the president's extravagant welcome. Frustrated that he's rolling out the red carpet. Want Trump to drop the velvet glove and use the iron fist. A number of Republicans outraged with Trump's embrace of Xi.

Oh, Republican Senator Roger Wicker, the great state of Mississippi. went down to the floor of the United States Senate to tell President Trump from his whole how he feels about this debacle. Quite frankly, had the White House asked me for advice, I would have suggested the president not invite Xi Jinping to Washington.

Someone who runs a small town southern funeral parlor he himself recently died in. But you know Trump, he's got nine lives. They're going to have to follow up that fiery rhetoric. Trump's a populist. He speaks the language of the people. He's not going to listen to the outrage unless it comes from someone like

Senator John Kennedy, who's a simple, lazy and a farm boy. Who was raised by a butter churn and two crawfish. Before, of course, attending Oxford law. He knows what these dang Chinese are like. President Xi is

one of the best liars I've ever seen. I mean, he learned to lie before he learned to talk, which China, if you turn the other cheek, they just stabbed you in the neck. I mean, I mean, with China, you can reach out a hand in friendship, but they'll just fuck your cousin. Old Senator Kennedy looks more bothered than a hot fox slapping a cold chicken in a war. It doesn't bother me.

Oh, well, he's not bothered either. Nothing? No cutesy. You know what's sad? the only Republican with balls to say what a bad idea this summit is is Donald Trump. We have the president of China come a few months ago to Washington. And we give them a state dinner. Now, when people are screwing you, you don't give them state dinners.

I would not be throwing them a dinner. I'd be throwing him a banquet. And there'll be flowers. And they'll be dancing. And afterwards, we're all going to go look at the ball. There'll be food and people dressed up, and we're going to talk about granite. I found it amusing as well. But of course, it is not the first time.

The media has tried to make a meal of Republicans' dissatisfaction with Donald Trump. Republican revolt. Republicans are starting to hit the panic button. The president's approval rating is in an all-time low. Breaking ranks. Republicans distance themselves from President Trump. Top Republicans break with President Trump just weeks before the midterm. openly breaking with the president over the war in Iran.

Openly? Well, I guess if Trump wasn't weakened, I mean, would any Republican have the balls to come out against the Iran war like Senator Houston of Ohio? Senator John Husted up for re-election in Ohio told Politico tonight, quote, the war needs to come to an end as quickly as possible so that we can lower gas prices.

There you go. He is taking a stand. Now, obviously, many would prefer that an anti-war position, would come in the form of a moral judgment about the shedding of innocent blood and the folly of man's desire for conquest and not necessarily, $5.54 for regular, what the f***?

But we take it here as we can get it. So long as Senator Houston of Ohio backs up his stirring rhetoric with a yes vote to end this reckless war of choice. I take you now to the floor of the United States Senate. Mr. Houston, Mr. Houston, no. You know, courage can take many forms.

although that does not appear to be one of the forms that it takes. But the point is, it's just sad, really. The point is Jesus up for re-election. His constituents hate this war, and chances are most of them don't get C-SPAN. Now, why in God's name would we continue to fall for this? Why are we constantly believing that there are cracks in the Maga Fortress? We do because that's what we are told over and over again. Is MAGA cracking? New cracks emerge in the president's armor. A crack in the Republican

party's blind loyalty. The first big crack in the wall. His party is turning on him. His base is fracturing. The dam is starting to break. If the dam breaks, it'll be a flood. It's going to be a flood, right? A break in the dam, in the Trump dam, that it doesn't mean that you're going to get a flood, but it means you at least have a leak. But you told us it. Damn, the armor, the cracks, the flood. And now it's, is the MAGA coalition finally showing a small wet spot on the front of its pants? And the media's been doing this to us for fucking ever. If it's not China and Iran, it was the Epstein files.

The Trump presidency, as we have known it, is over. It is not. Tracks are emerging among Republicans over the government shutdown. Cracks in the Republican wall are starting to show us. exposing some cracks within the GOP. Starting to see some cracks emerge. Trump fever breaks, and it's in the process of breaking right now. That Trump fever seems to be breaking.

I get the sense there might be a dam breaking. Same dam that's breaking this year that was breaking. This is a very tough dam. And we can keep going back even further, like when candidate Trump attacked John McCain's military service in 2015. I do think it's the beginning of the end of the marriage between Donald Trump and the republic. party. And he was just fired. For God's sakes.

It's not the end of the marriage between Trump and the Republican Party. It's the beginning of the Republican Party's current BDSM understanding of Master and Gimp. And the media... That's not Photoshopped, by the way. That is a real

elephant. You know what's worried about that? Can't remember it's safe word. Elephant memory joke. All right. And the media refuses to recognize that even Republicans with nothing left to lose will still shrivel at the moment of truth, like confirming an attorney general who also happened to be the president's personal law lackey. Todd Blanche's nomination for attorney general is indeed in deep trouble. The so-called Wounded Bear Caucus of Senator Tillis, Cassidy, Cornyn. They're not going to be

coming back for another term in 2027, so they really have nothing to lose. An army of Republicans with no more, you know, Fs to give. It's President Trump versus the Yolo Caucus. John Pornan, Tom Tillis, and Bill Cassidy, all voted for the president's former personal attorney, despite having concerns he was too close to the White House. Oh, it's the Yolo Caucus, bitch! We are here to cast confirmation votes and show some spine,

and we are all out of spine. And by the way, no one plays the, I'm actually quite concerned and upset about this thing I am actually going to vote for. better than the poster child for troubled acquiescence. The five-foot-eight-inch sophomore from the great state of Maine, Susan Collins, who is the avatar for wanting to do something about the policies her votes have enabled whenever, of course, she happens to be up for re-election.

Take ICE. Back in July, ICE shot an unarmed man in Biddeford, Maine. It would be wise for DHS to have a halt in non-urgent, traffic stops until we get this straightened out. Straightened out. Straightened out. Ice didn't try and return a sweater without a receipt. They shot a guy. I'm telling ICE the same thing I told L.L. Bean.

I was here last week. But yes, it would be wise to rein in ICE, Susan Collins, perhaps by tying their funding to important reforms. Senator Susan Collins, earlier this year, voting. voted for $70 billion in ICE funding with no reforms. How about Trump's Office of Management and Budget, which has come up with the novel theory that it can just refuse to spend money Congress has passed into law? Well, you can guess who's pretty upset about that. Senator Susan Collins saying any effort to rescind appropriated funds without congressional approval

is a clear violation of the law. Yes, it's a clear violation of the law that is known as the impoundment control act. And ignoring that law is a strategy. masterminded by Office of Management and Budget Chief Russell Vaught, who Susan Collins voted to confirm. But that Vaught would try and pull something like this. The president ran on the notion that the Impoundment Control Act is unconstitutional. I agree with that.

Troubling. What about abortion? I would not support a nominee who demonstrated hostility to Roe v. And to her credit, she only voted for four of them. Like so many enlightened Mainers, Susan Collins is also worried about the effects of the anti-vaccine sentiment on our health as a nation. I'm really worried that we're going to see outbreaks of measles, totally preventable outbreaks of measles. Yes, totally preventable, specifically by Susan Collins. Collins has voted to confirm RFK Jr. as head of the Department of Health and Human Services.

You heard the judgment of the crowd. Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown metaphor. I can't figure out if Susan Collins is Lucy or Charlie Brown. She is either Lucy cynically pretending to be concerned about the obvious downstream effects of her votes, despite repeatedly voting that way, or she is crue. criminally naive about the inevitable betrayal. Oh, I think this time the justices will actually... In fact, the only thing you can be sure of with Susan Collins

is if you try and hold her accountable for these contradictions. Do you think you should release what he's got? You regret your von Kavanaugh? I really don't have anything to add at this, at this point. I don't know enough to make a judgment at this point. I have not reviewed the... You haven't reviewed the MOU yet? Do you think this is a good deal for the United States?

So I have not yet had a chance to review the MRA. There is not a conveyance yet invented. Car, escalator, elevator, door that can hold the Houdini-esque Susan Collins. She is the master of all egress, except obviously the elevator. The elevator is tough. It's complicated.

The buttons, which symbol is weak? is greater than the one that closes it or less than? Nobody knows. And by the way, if Susan Collins was actually a principled lawmaker, she would no longer be Senator Susan Collins. If I'm elected, I will only serve two terms. Twelve years is long enough to be in public service, make a contribution, and then come home and let someone else take your place.

Oh, that seems interesting. Let me hold on one second here. Let me just very quickly. Okay. She made that statement in 1996, and a Senate term is six. years, so two terms is 12 years, so that puts us from 1996

to, hold on, 2008. Now, let me carry that this gig is awesome. Okay, hold on a second. And now it's 2026. Susan Collins made a two-term promise five terms ago. But it's fine. I'm sure she'll

continue to have very serious concerns about term limits when she's running for her 18th term as head in jar. Let's stop pretending that the overwhelming majority of Republican politicians will ever stand up or break from Donald Trump. Will ever remove the ball gag that is in place from grabbing by the Pussy Avenue to Insurrection Road to no more wars except this one Boulevard. They're in the fucking car. And the news media would be doing everyone a favor if you didn't try and play up every empty.

gesture of independence from Republican lawmakers. It's cruel. You're getting our hopes up, Lucy. And as for you, Susan Collins, I'd like to hear an explanation as to why you shouldn't pay an electoral price for enabling all the terrible consequences that the people of Maine are facing as a result of your Senate votes. Frankly, I just think it's too early. to make that kind of decision. But I am getting prepared. Where's you going? Son of a bitch.

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Bloomberg sees the era of billionaire athletes. A fad to some, the future of money to others. We see crypto's trillion dollar swings, the end of jobs, or the end of human struggle. We see the endless funds fueling the AI hype. While others follow the noise, we follow the money. Learn more at Bloomberg.com. Journal reporter, he was imprisoned in Russia for 16 months on false espionage charges. He writes about his experience in this cursed, beautiful land, a Russian-American story.

Please welcome to the program, Evan Gershkovich. The book is phenomenal. Thank you so much. Beautiful writing. I'm telling you, there's an ancient axiom, an old saw, if you will. I don't know why they imprisoned journalists, because you remember everything. You, when are they going to learn? You know, we'll see, maybe if the book fails,

it'll be like, that's a good idea. No, it's not. No! When you were, you were working in Russia for many years. Five and a half years at that point. Five and a half years. Your family background is Russian. Yep.

And so you've always been drawn to this land. What drew you to Russia in the first place with that? I mean, I was working here in New York as a reporter. Well, I guess as a news assistant, I was trying to become a reporter. And Russia, I think, has drawn reporters for forever because of how fascinating it is. Danger kind of partly it, right? Things are always happening, developing. And so I was seeking out reporting opportunities.

And I had colleagues at the – I was working at the New York Times, and colleagues were like, you speak Russian. You spoke Russian at home. You know, go take advantage of that. And there was an English language outlet working back then in Russia called The Moscow Times. Yes. They needed a reporter. I went over there.

And it was incredibly fascinating when I got there. In 2017, that was. The writing that you have, I think we obviously have a caricature in this country about what Russia is like in the way that I think you sort of anywhere you live in Middle America, they think of New York. You can't even walk. I was stabbed four times. You know, and then they get here and go like, it's just musicals? Like the caricature, the way you write about Russia in 2017, you don't feel necessarily the autocracy in the way. This is pre-Ukraine invasion.

Yes. not really, right? Because he already... Crimea had happened. Eastern Ukraine had already happened. An opposition activist or politician called Boris Nemtsov had already been murdered in the streets near the Kremlin for speaking out against the decision to forcibly annexed Crimea. But it's a kind of, it's a kind of cosplay democracy at that point. So it's not a democracy, obviously, but they're trying to make it seem like it is. And so they would allow, you know, Russian journals were facing pressure, but they could work.

so independent newsrooms still functioned. The late opposition leader Alex de Valle, was still drumming up protests when I arrived. That was kind of like the big news story when I was there. At that time, as an American Russian journalist, did you feel more in a protected bubble than maybe some of your Russian counterparts might have felt there?

Did you feel more protected? Yeah, absolutely. So foreign journalists were treated as kind of like quasi-diplomats at that point. Right. You know, the Russian government was trying to censor information for its own people, for its own audience. But it wanted to project an image of being a normal country. And so foreign journalists help you do that.

You know, you write for, you know, write for the world. The economy is doing fine. It's a normal place. Like, it's a modern, you know, Moscow's modern. And so the worst that could happen then would have been your visa's not renewed. Right. Or, you know, you're still in the country. You say in the book, like every three months, you'd have to get your permit.

It was a year then. And then when the full-scale invasion happened in 2022, they limited people to three-month visas. So at that point, only one reporter for the BBC in 2021 had been kicked out. But then they changed the rule, so it's three months. And so we took that as a signal kind of like, you know, if they don't like us being there anymore, they can let these visas, you know, run out. Sort of the easy way of handling it. Was that for you?

So now there's the full-scale invasion, and they're doing these three-month visas. In your mind, do you think, well, the worst that can happen is they'll boot me and I'll go somewhere else? There was a really, you know, small percentage that we were considering and thinking about. I mean, maybe more than a small percentage. I mean, some foreign newspapers closed their bureaus. The New York Times shut its bureau down. Bloomberg News Agency did. We stayed, my bureau chief stayed in Russia and others did.

And then the New York Times went back. And part of the thing that we were worried about was that Russia had passed these censorship laws, incredibly draconian. Right. If you called the war a war and not what they were calling it a special military operation, you could go to prison for 10 years. Huh. Very special, very short.

Interesting. So you're saying they just change the names of things randomly and then penalized journalists if they don't go along with it. Very easy. How weird. How weird. Yeah. And obviously, look, I think it's easy to be fly. about this country and maybe a certain authoritarian creep and all that.

But it's also, I don't mean to be glib about what you're actually facing there, which is really a different form of peril than here. Right. But, you know, since I've been home, my newspaper has been sued and reporters have been called out in public. So it's not like it's super funny. It's not not happening. It's not, you know, there's a little creep. But yeah, it was a very different situation then.

Right. for what we were going through. I mean, so after these censorship laws are passed, the, you know, foreign ministry spokeswoman told the, you know, we were asking them, what can we actually report? Like, does this apply to us? Do the rules apply? Right.

And, you know, Russian journalists had fled the country. And she said to us, you know, you call women men and men, women in the West. You can call this a special military operation. Are you, so they, they're literally just terminally on Twitter. Like, is that? Seems like it. Or X now. Since I got back, it's X now, apparently.

Oh, now I'm not aware of that. I missed that change. Oh, my goodness. I've been dead naming it all this time. Is there, in Russia, how aware are they of our cultural divisions? And how much is that? You know, you do write in the book that people would say things like Ukraine would have fallen if the United States was not.

behind them and doing these various things. They do seem to feel like we are playing a more intentional role in keeping Russia down. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's, I mean, if, you know, the most of the information in that country, if not at this point, like 99% is state-directed propaganda. And that's the drumbeat. That's the information that's being basically projected on the airwaves every single day.

So it's what people are consuming. But, I mean, it's also rooted in reality, right? Ukraine is being buttressed and supported by the West. Right. You know, Ukraine wouldn't be able to be fighting right now without it. So it's a very direct link. The grains of truth that lead to them. Half-truth, basically, is how propaganda works.

That's right. It has to be something that resonates. Right. And so in that environment, you are still reporting really sensitive things and you're going to the front and you're doing all these really dangerous things. And a gentleman approaches you with what seems like a great story. Right. So I, you know, we were debating whether we should be there or not. And, you know, nobody was getting targeted at these censorship laws. I was even being followed outwardly at points, including when I was reporting near the border. And a couple colleagues are there from the New York Times and the Guardian were there with me. But it felt like intimidation. So you're greeted when you arrived. But you knew you were being watched. Yeah, you know, you have two cars following you. You have a, you know, a security agent with a phone with a flash on. And that kind of thing has happened.

happened in other authoritarian countries before, like in China too. And the read that we had was that, you know, they're trying to intimidate us, or at least our sources who we're speaking to. At the end of 2022, Vladimir Putin addressed his domestic intelligence agency, the FSB, and he told them they need to catch a spy. Well, he said it, and the terms were next year you need to do a better job of catching traitors, foreign spies, and saboters. Was that like a pep talk he gave at the FSB? He usually, so what he does is he addresses, them at the start of the year during the year, you know, when the World Cup was taking place in 2018,

right. He told them that they needed to catch more terrorists and extremists to make sure that the party wasn't ruined. Right. So they went about arresting teenagers who were Antifa and anarchists. They have Antifa too? They have Antifa too. They have TNT, the TV channel.

They got a lot of things. They're just like us. Just like us. Just like us. They eat more fish. And so it's sort of the normal, you know, he gives them a signal that they go and do it. But in 2020, I'm no longer followed outwardly. And that's a signal that I clearly missed.

Okay. You know, it seems to me like they were trying to make me start, you know, start feeling comfortable. Right. And they continue to give you that three-month extension. Yes, exactly. So right two days before I'm arrested, I get my last extension for my visa and the accreditation, the technical document you need to report in the country. And so, you know, Ukraine was saying that it was going to be doing this large counteroffensive

in the summer of 23. you know, the West was saying the same thing, and Russia was preparing for it, but there wasn't that much reporting on the subject. Right when Putin told his service to catch a spy, it also reported a story about how he was getting information from the front, making decisions about, you know, the war. So it seems like that wasn't, you know, maybe that was a signal for them about, you know, this guy's up to something perhaps too sensitive. Plus, they were looking for an American as far as I can tell. Because right around then, when the Russians were telling the Americans that Paul Whelan,

who was arrested on espionage charges. So when you say they're looking for an American, it's in some ways like the NBA. A little bit. Matching trades. Right. So basically they need a guy. They want to get a guy out of prison,

so they've got to arrest a guy that's also like at a mid-level exemption. They don't want to go over the second apron, so they want to get a report, like that kind of thing. I mean, not to make it too cynical, but it's kind of like that, because they have, so they have a person who's in Germany for murdering a person. in broad daylight, he works for the FSB, sent there on assignment. Yes. They have an assassin.

They have an assassin. A state assassin, one of the more elite ones. He worked in the alpha unit of the FSB. He was a body of guard for Putin. And Germany sentences him to life in prison. They have, you know, call him an asset, right? That's how they look at these pawns or rooks or knights. And they have Paul Whelan on espionage charges, and they're telling the Americans,

he won't leave Russia unless Vodium Krasikov leaves Germany. Right. And the Americans are... And they also have Navalny in their backpon. who they can also use. Could also use potentially, yeah. So what they tell the Americans is, this is the trade, it's one for one, make it happen.

And the Americans say, well, that's insane. Germany's a third country, a sovereign country. Not going to do that trade. Lo and behold, they catch me, and they say, you know, it's a two for one, like you put it. So then I think, you know, what they're looking for is a big, high, you know, sort of a target that will cause a loud uproar here.

And it's also what you're saying, are they paying attention to what's happening at home? home here. I think they are. Listen, the case was, rightfully so, international news. And it got everywhere. And it was a guy basically just coming to you and saying, this is sensitive here. So it seemed, you know, it was slightly more tricky.

You know, so I think we were attuned to cases like, here, take a flash drive. There might be something interesting on it. Right. I had a colleague who was, he had covered the Russian defense industry for years before the war started, or I mean the full-scale invasion. And he had left Russia. But, you know, all hands on deck.

Biggest ground invasion in Europe since World War II. So he starts covering Ukraine, starts covering Russia, applies for a new visa to come to Russia. They keep denying him. I'm in the country. And so he has this old source from a union boss for factories and the world for about four years or so. And so we start reporting this story and talking different sources,

and he reaches out to that source. They kept in touch during the war. And the guy suggested he could meet. And my colleague can't meet. I can go meet. So I go to the first meeting. And, yeah, he suggests that he can help us, that he can get some documents together.

And that's really, you know, that's the main signal that we missed. I mean, myself, but us as a newsroom. And he said that it would take him another, it would take him some time, basically. And that was the second meeting. second meeting, at the second meeting, that's where I get arrested. And so my theory that I lay out in the book is that, you know, the big man's told them, we got to go catch a spy. They start

looking at their environment. There's a guy up to, you know, what we might call Brave reporting, maybe it's a little reckless. They don't like it. They need an American. Everything starts fitting together. Plus, they have a way to lure me into a trap. Lo and behold, they do. And then I think the first meeting is a way to sell it to him. Like, well, we got one. And then he gives the green light, the go-ahead, go get him in the second one, exactly. And then they can go, say, we caught him red-handed, and the rest is what was in the news for the six months. And you end up in this labyrinth for 16 months of really intensely harsh sort of concentric circles of hell that you, you know, you're on a wider one, and then you get further and further down into their system.

But what I found so fascinating is the strange, the Russians, seem to be very aware that they are all fatalistically role players in a play that they're putting on and you would say to them, you know I'm not a spy right and they're like, what different? And we're all just, eh. I mean, there's my favorite moment with the warden of the first prison. Yes. When he comes to check in on me because they would check in on me before I see the US

ambassador and he asks me how I'm doing. And I told him actually, you know, like I'm kind of surprised that you even, you know, there's more care than I thought I would even have. Like I hurt my knee exercising. Prison nurse checked it out. Even gave me some exercising. He goes, well, of course, we care about your health. I say to him, well, yeah, I mean, the package needs to be whole and undamaged. Otherwise, the value is going to go down to our trade analogy.

And he checks his shoulder. He gets all grave and really quietly, he says, you know, I didn't tell you this, but yes. So it's like, you know, the big secret has been revealed. It's shockingly nonchalant. But it's also, I think it's important to get for people, you know, people who don't know Russia that well, it's very calculating. So Victoria Rochina, Ukrainian journalists at this,

you know, around the same time gets taken captive in Russian-occupied part of Ukraine. Her stay in the prison system is much different. She gets killed and sent back in a body bag without her body organs. So her family can't figure out what happened to her. And so the Russians take me in this, you know, it's going to be a loud case.

It's a global uproar. They want to say, we have due process. We treat prisoners well. Also, they're taking a journalist. He's probably going to write about it if they let him go home, right? And so I think they want to create this, like you said, apply a mirage. And so I, you know, you're talking about these circles of hell. Right.

It's also important to know I had, you know, they're not fun conditions, but some of the best conditions. And people have it much worse. Well, you write about when they have Ukrainian prison and they're torturing them. Right, right. And they're getting. You end up not in the first. prison that you go to, but the second one, I guess, Central. Yeah, Central.

Central. Yeah. And in that, it's sort of this almost dystopian blade runner-esque. Everyone sleeps during the day, and then at night, the highways come alive and the ropes, and everyone is communicating and sending contraband and communicating through the food vent. The feeder. The feeder.

Right. this like, it's about the size of a human head, the window that opens in the cell door. Right. And it's kind of low. But in that prison, it wasn't as, so I'm in two prisons, right? The first one's very high security. The second one, you're sent. You don't see anybody in the first one.

At all. It's basically you and your roommate, and every now and again, you get to go for a walk in a very small room. On the roof of the prison, there's, you know, there's just this like netting above you. And this is Lafortova. Lefortevo in Moscow. It's pronounced La Fortova. Correct.

Or Le Fortolo, maybe. That's exactly right. I think maybe that. It's French. Exactly. That's right. And so, yeah, and they have this really, I mean, it's crazy. It's a wild system of they move you around the prison, snapping their fingers or clicking

this kind of like metal. To make sure you don't see anybody. Exactly, to notify each other that they're moving people around. And in the second prison, they don't, you're sent back to where you ostensibly committed your crime for your trial, so sent back to the Urals. and it's much more open and the guards are a bit more loose. And so these feeders, where you get your food through or letters or whatever, they leave them open so there could be air because it's the summer.

And so every evening we stick our heads out onto the hallway and chat. And you kind of lean down and stick your head through. How long do you have to be in that prison before you trust that putting your head through a slot? won't be the last thing you ever do in your life. I guess you're really lonely. You want to chat? You know, you start talking to yourself

after a while when you're installed there. Well, you even say you didn't do it for a while. And when you finally poked your head through the feeder, they were all like, well, it's about time. Exactly, yeah, yeah. Yeah, they were like, why weren't you out here? And I was like, well, I didn't know how to do this in the last prison.

You didn't have this. It's not that obvious. But here's the thing. So for the reader of the book, this is an extraordinary journey, and you write about it, really. with such great vivid detail and emotion and thoughtfulness. It really is a wonderful work.

But like, I feel like you're just this dude that I would be like watching a Giants game with. I kind of am. Right, I am. But what is it when the ordinary meets the extraordinary and these, how do you find within yourself the resilience to overcome what is, you may think that it's not as bad as a body bag with no organ.

Right. But it is objectively fucking terrible. Right. I mean, I got, you know, again, the luck part of it, or not the luck, it's sort of, you know, blessed with a few things. One, I was working as a reporter for five and a half years. So when it happens, and they don't immediately torture me and subject me to the worst, you know,

you immediately take that a signal. Like, oh, it was a setup. And a setup for a specific reason. Right. And that means it's not going to be an espionage case for, you know, 20 years. It's going to be... You did not fear you really were going to a gulag. I really feared at the beginning when they arrest me and put the hood over my head that they're going to be torturing me.

Trying to get information if they think I'm a spy, maybe trying to have me, you know, tell on other people or whatever it is. And none of that happens. They just hand me my charges. And then take me to Moscow and they kind of, you know, treat me generally well compared, you know, in the system. So I'd reported stories where somebody's sat on a chair tied to it, electrocuted. I mean, that's not. They do that. They do that, right?

And so that doesn't happen to me. And so I have this kind of relief. And then I also know how these cases go. I know how long they take. There's no surprises in the penal system. You know, it's fixed. And then, you know, that's one thing. Two, you know, I grew up in a Russian-speaking home,

so I have Russian. I can communicate with my cellmates, with the guards, the prison officials. Blessed with a sense of humor, luckily. That I think is pretty important. Pretty immediately you're tossing that out there. Although I imagine it can move into, when you're doing that,

There might have been moments where you thought, oh, not the time. Right, right. No jokes, huh? Okay. I mean, but you also get in this habit. I don't know if it's just natural that, you know, like, generally oppressed people's are the funniest, but it's the way to deal with the situation, right? It's hard, so you make a joke.

That's right. It's just what you do. And so have the, you know, the luck of the draw there. And then because they were treating me in a certain way, I had access to information and I had this great, incredible, you know, my newsroom backed me, my family backed me, my friends back to me. And you're aware the whole time that you're not alone. One of the things I've seen in other countries is sort of in Iran in particular, they arrest you, they put you in isolation,

and they want you to feel that the world has forgotten. Right. This was not the case here. Jason resigned, I think, had that example. Jason resigned and Mazur Bahari, same. Exactly, exactly. And this was the opposite. Right.

I get into my prison cell and I have a TV. And on state TV, you know, it's my second night in prison on a news show, on a panel, they say, you know, I think the quote, if I remember correctly, it was like, you know, it might be cynical to say, but we just replenished our exchange fund, they call it. That's what they call it in Russian. There's a term for it. They said that publicly.

And you were, my first 24 hours. And you have TV, you're watching that on TV. And so, I mean, again, bless them. It gives me a way to stay, you know, positive. You know, you think this is going to end much sooner than the term that you're actually going to receive. Would you go back to Russia? You clearly loved it. You love the country, you love the people.

I'm of the people in a way, right? I grew up in this kind of home. I met some of the best friends I'll ever have there. I met my girlfriend there. It's an interesting place to live and work. Now while he's alive or in power, right? Do you see a future for Russia without Putin? Two-part question.

Future in Russia without Putin. What might that look like? And in this country, do you, are we being, overly dramatic when we talk about the clouds of authoritarianism gathering in this country? So, I mean, I think the Russia one is really complicated because these sorts of regimes kind of are, you know, Alex Hey, Yorchuk, this Soviet historian wrote one of the best books about the Soviet Union called Everything is forever until it was forever until it was no more. And it felt like it was forever and suddenly it collapses and disintegrates and, you know, in retrospect, we try to connect the docks.

but while you're living through it, it feels like that's it. You know, if he dies tomorrow, it's hard to imagine a more, a less repressive Russia right now. You know, global conflict, developing an authoritarian axis is kind of deepening. And in those kinds of conditions, it's hard to, for me, it's hard to imagine a country just deciding, oh, we're going to start reforming. We're just going to loosen things up, sort of like the way when the Soviet Union collapsed. And the disastrous effect of what they thought that was, that we sort of tried to apply the purest form of capitalism, over a system that was not ready for it.

And it broke the place. It broke the place. At the same time, you know, throughout Putin's years, there was, you know, Boris Nemtsov, there was Alexei Navalny. The system does also produce people who... But if the people don't know that. If the people that live there are getting a completely separate story, then I guess even if he goes, they wouldn't understand why you'd reform it anyway,

because it's all going great. I don't know if people actually think it's all going great. I think there's a sort, you know, it's really hard to pull in an authoritarian system and also a system where people are so scared that if, you know, I met a guy in prison, read him out in the book, he was protesting the war by spray painting for word, anti-war words on a wall of a government building. He got arrested. He's ended up in double-digit sentence. He was a 17-year-old kid at the time. That's crazy. And so if you're in a system like that and you think, you know, a pollster calls you. Do they have polster? They have pollsters. They've independent pollsters.

I mean, I mean, Putin just did, by the way, great in the midterms. Fantastic. Just perfectly. I mean, his party, I think, captured 103% of... Couldn't do better. All the available seats.

And the second part is, now that you're back here and you're feeling our country and you're on the ground, is there a sense of dread? Is there a sense of impending danger in your mind? because you are boy at heart that journalism is running through your blood. So where do you see this going here? Yeah, I mean, it's this odd moment at the end of the book

when I start reporting about how the swap came together, why I think I got arrested, you know, trying to piece it all together. And it's after the inauguration. And there's a sort of chill on D.C. People are meeting far from their offices. They're talking to whispers, checking their shoulders, asking if I'm on signal, which actually in the Russian system, They said, you know, one of the accusations of me being on signal meant that I was using CIA tactics, even though journalists used signals to protect their sources.

Yeah, the topology reading your criminal report is kind of amazing. It actually is. It's amazing. It's all they have to do. But they just say there's three sentences that... Yeah, I'll say it's that, you know, the U.S. media is used by the CIA for intelligence gathering purposes according to an informed source. And then the Wall Street Journal's Moscow Bureau is used by the CIA for intelligence. intelligence gathering purposes according to informed source. Evan Gershkovich belongs to the apparatus of the CIA. That's it. That's all you need, right? And so there's a kind of, you know, there's a fear, but I think direct comparisons aren't very useful. They're not apt.

They're not always apt, but, you know, I think we can judge what's happening on its own. Right. You know, banning television channels from being in the pool just because you want to, doesn't seem like the, you know, the best way to, you know, uphold the First Amendment. Because it is, there's a lot, and the corruption that is now explicitly out in the open now is such a hallmark of the system. I just wrote about it a couple weeks ago because I'm back to work at the journal and, you know, the Trump's just opened or launching a Trump tower in Tbilisi that we read about. And that just feels like now just sort of part for the course, even though, you know, when I was moving to Russia. They work for the Pentagon, whatever, it's all that.

But when I was moving to Russia 10 years ago, it was, that was still, you know, we still had some sort of outrage on that. But, you know, we published that story, and then the next day, ProPublica blew us away with the Donald Trump Jr. wedding, right? So, I know it's just, there's a story after story after story. It's nonstop. Yeah, yeah. When you're at work now, and, like, one of your colleagues is like,

who took my peanut butter? Like, are you like, I was in fucking prison for 16 months? I'm hungry. Like, do you lord that over? I grew up in a Russian immigrant home, so we didn't have peanut butter, so I wouldn't take it. My parents hated peanut butter. This post beautiful land, phenomenal book.

Evan goes for this. We'll be right back. At Volvo, safety is not a feature. It's our purpose. Rigorous crash testing. Decades of learning from real accidents. Innovations that help prevent accidents before they happen and help protect you when they occur.

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