Original subtitles

ANNOUNCER: From the most trusted

journalists at Comedy Central, it's America's only source

for news.

This is The Daily Showwith your host, Jon Stewart.

[theme music]

# #

[cheering]

What is that?

Oh, we got-- ladies and gentlemen, please.

Welcome to the show.

We have a tremendous one for you tonight.

My name is Jon Stewart.

Great show for you tonight.

Later on in the program, I'll be

talking to journalist Evan Gershkovich, held

in a Russian prison for 16 months,

which may or may not come up during the interview.

I'll probably bring it up.

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-- oh, do you see that lady with the face?

Yeah.

Do you think she's pretty? Oh, good.

Yeah, she's very pretty.

By the way, 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.

Oh.

In fact, 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.

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.

Like, 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 a circle.

By the way, you know, China did use to work

in rock about 3,000 years ago.

So again, 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 a good host, 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 [bleep] ballroom.

So you'll keep that behind the curtain, yeah?

As a special treat, in honor of President Xi and Madame Peng,

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.

Yeah.

Jewish,. surprising.

Xi Jinping.

Yeah, who'd have thought?

Probably changed his name.

Anyway, surprising how lighthearted their interactions

seem to be given recent developments.

REPORTER 1: sent 1,300 shipments of drone and missile

parts to Iran from the start of the year

through the end of June.

What?

China has been sending weapons to Iran?

Did China supplying Iran with weapons come up at all?

The US 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 US ambassador to China, I do not believe it.

President Trump continues to say,

hey, we sell arms to other people around the world.

He actually asked President Xi, would he

like to buy some at one point?

What the [bleep]?

How does 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?

To China?

You mean to Taiwan?

I never heard of that one.

I'm going to have to ask him.

You mean, we're going to sell-- no, they probably

like to buy it because we do make

better equipment than them.

So maybe it's a good idea.

He totally [bleep] 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.

I'm in.

Now, this is--

[applause]

Quick question.

I seem to remember the Republican Party used

to frown on the idea of selling weapons to communist enemies

who are supplying weapons to other enemies

we are currently at war with.

Does anybody on that side have an opinion on this summit?

REPORTER 2: 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.

I'm not happy with the president's

extravagant welcome.

Frustrated that he's rolling out the red carpet.

REPORTER 3: Want Trump to drop the velvet glove

and use the iron fist.

REPORTER 4: A number of Republicans outraged

with Trump's embrace of Xi.

Oh, damn!

Outraged!

This is it.

This is it.

Trump finally went too far.

Republicans are outraged.

So mad.

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 chest

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.

Oh, shit!

Oh.

Oh!

Damn!

That is the kind of fire you expect

from someone who runs a small-town Southern funeral

parlor that 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 Louisiana 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-- is one of the best liars I've ever seen.

I mean, he learned to lie before he learned to talk.

With China, if you turn the other cheek,

they just stab you in the neck.

I mean-- I mean, with China, you

can reach out a hand in friendship,

but they'll just [bleep] your cousin.

China-- China will [bleep] your cousin.

But, hell, old Senator Kennedy looks

more bothered than a hot fox slapping

a cold chicken in a warm river.

Doesn't bother me.

Oh.

Well, he's not bothered either.

Nothing, no-- no cutesy-- you know what's sad?

The only Republican with the 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 him 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'll be throwing him a banquet.

And there'll be flowers, and there'll be dancing.

And afterwards, we're all going to go look at the ballroom.

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 at an all-time low.

REPORTER 5: Breaking ranks.

Republicans distanced themselves

from President Trump.

REPORTER 6: Top Republicans break

with President Trump just weeks before the midterms.

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 Husted of Ohio?

Senator Jon Husted, up for reelection 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 [bleep]?

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.

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 Husted is up for reelection.

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.

REPORTER 7: 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.

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 the dam, 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 [bleep] 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.

Cracks are emerging among Republicans

over the government shutdown.

REPORTER 8: Cracks in the Republican wall

are starting to show up, 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.

Is that the 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 Republican Party.

It's not!

[laughter]

He's still standing!

You're not!

[laughter]

He's not dead.

He was just fired.

[laughter]

For God's sakes.

[applause]

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.

[laughter]

And the media--

[applause]

That's not photoshopped, by the way.

[laughter]

That is a real el-- that is a real elephant.

[laughter]

You know what's weird about that?

Can't remember its safe word.

[laughter]

Elephant memory joke.

All right.

[laughter]

And the-- 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.

REPORTER: --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.

REPORTER: John Cornyn, Thom 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!

[laughter]

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 5-foot, 8-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 reelection.

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.

[laughter]

They shot a guy.

I'm telling ICE the same thing I told L.L.Bean--

I was here last week.

[laughter]

But, yes, it would be wise to reign in ICE, Susan Collins,

perhaps by tying their funding to important reforms.

REPORTER: Senator Susan Collins earlier this year

voted for $70 billion in ICE funding with no reforms.

Oops.

Or 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.

REPORTER: 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 the Office of Management and Budget

Chief Russell Vought, who Susan Collins voted to confirm.

But how could she have known that Vought would try

and pull something like this?

The president ran on the notion

that the Impoundment Control Act is unconstitutional.

I agree with that.

Ooh.

[laughter]

Troubling.

What about abortion?

I would not support a nominee who demonstrated

hostility to Roe v. Wade.

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 am really worried that we're going

to see outbreaks of measles.

Totally preventable outbreaks of measles.

Yes!

Totally preventable!

Specifically by Susan Collins!

REPORTER: Collins has voted to confirm

RFK Jr. as head of the Department

of Health and Human Services.

[audience booing]

Boo!

You heard the-- you heard the judgment of the crowd.

[laughter]

Boo!

You know that Lucy pulling the football away

from Charlie Brown metaphor?

I can't figure out if Susan Collins

is Lucy or Charlie Brown?

[laughter]

She's either Lucy, cynically pretending

to be concerned about the obvious downstream effects

of her votes despite repeatedly voting that way,

or she is criminally naive about the inevitable betrayal.

Oh, I think this time the justices will actually-- no!

[laughter]

In fact, the only thing you can be

sure of with Susan Collins is if you try

and hold her accountable for these contradictions,

she's gone.

You regret your vote on Kavanaugh?

I really don't have anything to add at this point.

I don't know enough to make a judgment at this point.

[laughter]

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 which?

Is greater than the one that closes it or less than?

Nobody knows.

And by the way, if Susan-- 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.

12 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--

I mean--

[cheers, applause]

Hold on, [inaudible].

OK.

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 the-- this gig is awesome.

OK, 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 a jar.

[laughter]

Point is, 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 [bleep] 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.

[laughter]

And as for you, Susan Collins--

[applause]

--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-- it's too early

to make that kind of decision.

But I am getting prepared--

Where's she going?

Son of a bitch!

When we come back, Evan Gershkovich.

Don't go away.

[cheers, applause]

[cheers, applause]

Hey, welcome back to The Daily Show.

My guest tonight, a Wall Street 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.

[applause, theme music]

Thank you for joining us

Thanks for having me.

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 imprison journalists.

Because you remember everything.

When are they going to learn?

You know, we'll see.

Maybe if the book fails.

They'll be like, that's a good idea.

JON: No, it's not. - We'll keep doing it.

No.

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.

Yeah.

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,

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.

Things are always happening, developing.

And so I was seeking out reporting opportunities.

And I had colleagues at--

I was working at the New York Times.

And colleagues were like, you speak Russian.

You spoke Russian at home.

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,

anywhere you live in middle America,

they think of New York--

you can't even walk.

I was stabbed four times.

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?

Well, I mean, not really.

Because he had already--

Crimea.

Crimea had happened.

Eastern Ukraine had already happened.

And 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 annex Crimea.

But 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--

Russian journalists were facing pressure, but they could work.

So independent newsrooms still functioned.

The late opposition leader, Alexei Navalny,

was still drumming up protests when I arrived.

That was kind of like the big news story when I was there.

JON: 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.

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 write for the world.

The economy is doing fine.

It's a normal place.

Like it's a modern--

Moscow's modern.

And so the worst that could happen then

would have been your visas not renewed.

Or you know1

And that's a three month, you say, in the book.

Like, every three months you'd have to get your--

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 rules so it's three months.

And so that we took that as a signal of,

like, if they don't like us being there anymore,

they can let these visas run out,

the easy way of handling it.

JON: 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 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.

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.

Very special. Very short.

Interesting.

So you're saying they just changed the names of things

randomly, and then penalize journalists if they

don't go along with it. - Very easy.

- How weird. - How weird.

Yeah.

[applause]

And obviously, look, I think it's

easy to be flippant 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--

It's not not happening.

It's not not--

a little creep.

But yeah, it a very different situation then for what

we were going through.

I mean, so after the censorship laws are passed,

the foreign ministry spokeswoman told-- you know,

we were asking them, what can we actually report?

Like, does this apply to us?

Do the rules apply?

And Russian journalists had fled the country.

And she said to us, you call women men,

and men women in the West.

You can call this a special military operation.

Are you-- so they're literally

just terminally on Twitter?

Like, is that--

- Seems like it. - That's--

Or X now.

Since I got back, it's X now, apparently.

Oh, now, I'm not aware of that.

So I missed that change.

Oh, my goodness.

I've been deadnaming it all this time.

Is there-- in Russia, how aware are

they of our cultural divisions, and

how much is that-- 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, 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.

Ukraine is being buttressed and supported by the West.

Ukraine wouldn't be able to be fighting right now without it.

So it's a very direct link.

JON: The grains of truth that lead to--

Half truths, basically, is how propaganda works.

That's right, has to be--

You can't completely make it up.

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 we were debating whether we should be there or not.

And nobody was getting targeted with these censorship laws.

I was even being followed outwardly at points,

including when I was reporting near the border.

And a couple of colleagues of from the New York Times and

The Guardian were there with me.

But it felt like intimidation.

So you're greeted when you arrive.

But you knew you were being watched.

Yeah, you have two cars following you.

You have a security agent with a phone with a flash on.

And that kind of thing has happened

in other authoritarian countries before.

Like in China, too.

And the read that we had was that they

were trying to intimidate us, or at least our sources

who were speaking to.

At the end of 2022, Vladimir Putin

addressed his Domestic Intelligence Agency, the FSB,

and he told them they needed 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 saboteurs.

JON: Was that like a pep talk he gave at the FSB?

He usually-- so what- he does is as he addresses

them at the start of the year.

During the year-- when the World Cup was taking place

in 2018, he told them that they needed

to catch more terrorists and extremists to make sure

that the party wasn't ruined.

So they went about arresting teenagers

who were Antifa and anarchist.

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.

Except they eat more fish.

And so, it's sort of the normal--

he gives them a signal that they go and do it.

2023, I'm no longer followed outwardly.

And that's a signal that I clearly missed.

It seems to me like they were trying to make

me start feeling comfortable.

And he had a colleague--

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, 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 the war.

So it seems like that wasn't--

maybe that was a signal for them

about 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, the Russians

were telling the Americans that Paul Whelan, who was arrested

on espionage charges--

JON: Explain the-- so when you say

they're looking for an American,

it is in some ways like the NBA.

A little bit.

They're matching trades.

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.

And 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 it too cynical,

but it's kind of like that.

Because they have-- so they have

a person who's in Germany 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 bodyguard for Putin.

And Germany sentences him to life in prison.

They have-- call him an asset.

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 Vadim Krasikov leaves Germany.

And the Americans are--

And they also have Navalny in their back pocket,

who they can also use.

Could also use potentially.

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 is a third country, a sovereign country.

JON: Not going to do that trade.

Lo and behold, they catch me.

And they say, it's a two for one, like you put it.

So then, I think what they're looking for is a big high--

a target that will cause a loud uproar--

JON: That's right. - --here.

And it's also what you're saying.

Are they paying attention to what's happening at home here?

I think they are.

And 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 seems-- and it was slightly more tricky.

So I think we were attuned to cases, like here,

take a flash drive.

There might be something interesting on it.

I had a colleague who 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 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 in the Urals 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 had 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 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.

JON: So now, it was a second meeting.

Second meeting.

At the second meeting, that's where I get arrested.

And so my theory that I laid out in the book

is that 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 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, sort of like, well, we got one.

And then he gives the green light, the go ahead

to go 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 16 months.

And you end up in this labyrinth

for 16 months of really intensely

harsh concentric circles of hell

that, 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 are putting on.

And you would say to them, you know I'm not a spy, right?

And they're like, what difference--

I mean, we're all just--

There's my favorite moment with the warden

of the first prison, 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, I'm kind of

surprised that you even--

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 exercise.

And he goes, well, of course, we care about your health.

And 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, I didn't tell you this, but yes.

So it's like, the big secret has been revealed.

It's shockingly nonchalant.

But also, I think it's important to get--

for people who don't know Russia that well,

it's very calculating.

So Victoria Roschon, a Ukrainian journalist,

around the same time, gets taken

captive in a 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--

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.

And so I think they want to create this, like you said,

a play, a mirage.

And so you're talking about these circles of hell.

It's also important to know I had--

they're not fun conditions, but some of the best conditions.

And people have it much worse.

JON STEWART: Well, you write about when

they have Ukrainian prisoners, and they're torturing them,

and they're getting--

you end up, not in the first prison

that you go to, but the second one--

I guess it's Central?

Yeah, Central.

Central.

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.

- The feeder. - Right.

It's about the size of a human head, the window

that opens in the cell door.

And it's kind of low.

But in that prison, it wasn't as-- so I'm in two prisons.

The first one is very high security.

The second one, you're sent--

JON STEWART: 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

just this netting above you.

And this is Lefortovo?

The Lefortovo, in Moscow.

It's pronounced "Lefortova."

Correct, or "Luh-fortovo," maybe.

That's exactly right. It's French.

Exactly.

That's right.

And so, yeah, there-- 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 snapper.

JON STEWART: 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 I was 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 into the hallway and chat.

And you 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?

When it gets really lonely, you want to chat.

You start talking to yourself after a while

when you're in solitary.

Well, you even say, you didn't do it for a while.

And when you finally poked your head through the feeder,

they were 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.

We didn't have this.

It's not that obvious.

But here's the thing.

So for a 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

watching a Giants game with.

I kind of am. JON STEWART: Right.

I am.

But what is it when the ordinary

meets the extraordinary?

How do you find, within yourself,

the resilience to overcome what is--

you may think that it's-- it's not as bad

as a body bag with no organs.

But it is objectively [bleep] terrible.

Right.

I mean, again, the luck part of it-- or not the luck,

it's 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 immediately take that as signal like,

oh, it was a setup, and a setup for a specific reason.

And that means it's not going to be an espionage

case for 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 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 treat me generally well in the system.

So I had reported stories where somebody's sat on a chair,

tied to it, electrocuted.

I mean, that's--

JON STEWART: They do that.

They do that.

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, that's one thing.

Two, 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.

No jokes, huh?

OK.

I mean, but you also get in this habit.

I don't know if it's just natural

that generally, oppressed peoples are the funniest.

But it's the way to deal with the situation.

It's hard, so you make a joke.

It's just what you do.

And so had the luck of the draw there.

And then, because they were treating me in a certain way,

I had access to information.

And I have this great-- my newsroom backed me,

and my family backed me, and my friends backed me.

And you're aware the whole time that you're not alone.

One of the things that I've seen in other countries is--

in Iran, in particular, they arrest you,

they put you in isolation, and they

want you to feel that the world has forgotten you.

This was not the case here.

Jason Rezaian, I think had that.

Jason Rezaian and Maziar Bahari, same.

Exactly, exactly.

And this was the opposite.

I get into my prison cell, and I have a TV.

And on state TV-- it's my second night in prison--

on a news show, on a panel, they say--

I think the quote, if I remember it correctly,

was, 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--

In my first 24 hours.

And you have TV, you're watching that on TV.

Yes.

And so, again, bless them.

It gives me a way to stay positive.

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 mean, I'm of the people in a way.

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-- not

while he's alive, or in power.

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, 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--

Alexei Yurchak, the Soviet historian,

wrote, one of the best books about the Soviet Union

called Everything Is Forever, Until It Was--

Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More.

And it felt like it was forever.

And suddenly, it collapses and disintegrates.

And in retrospect, we try to connect the dots.

But while you're living through it, it feels like that's it.

If he dies tomorrow, it's hard to imagine a less

repressive Russia right now.

Global conflict, developing an authoritarian axis

kind of deepening.

And in those kinds of conditions, it's hard-- 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.

Right, and the disastrous effect

of what they thought that was, that we

tried to apply the purest form of capitalism

over a system that was not ready for it.

And it broke the place.

Huge poverty, drug addiction, broke the place.

At the same time, throughout Putin's years,

there was Boris Nemtsov.

There was Alexei Navalny.

The system does also produce people who--

JON STEWART: 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-- it's really hard to poll

in an authoritarian system, and also a system where

people are so scared that if--

I met a guy in prison, write about it in the book.

He was protesting the war by spray

painting four 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.

And so if you're in a system like that, and you think--

a pollster calls you--

JON STEWART: Do they have pollsters?

They have pollsters.

They have independent pollsters.

I mean, Putin just did, by the way, great in the midterms.

Fantastic, just perfectly.

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's 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,

trying to piece it all together.

And it's after the inauguration.

And there's a sort of chill on DC.

People are meeting far from their offices.

They're talking in whispers, checking their shoulders,

asking if I'm on signal.

Which actually, in the Russian system, they said--

one of the accusations of me being on signal

meant that I was using CIA tactics,

even though journalists use signals

to protect their sources.

Yeah, the tautology of reading your criminal report

is kind of amazing.

It actually is.

It's amazing that's all they have to do.

But they just say, there's these three sentences.

JON STEWART: Say it.

Yeah, I'll say it.

It's that the US media is used by the CIA

for intelligence gathering purposes,

according to an informed source.

And then, The Wall Street Journal'sMoscow bureau

is used by the CIA for intelligence

gathering purposes, according to informed source.

Evan Gershkovich belongs to the apparatus of the CIA.

That's it.

That's all you need.

And so there's a fear.

But I think direct comparisons aren't very useful.

JON STEWART: They're not apt.

They're not always apt.

But I think we can judge what's happening on its own,

banning television channels from being in the pool

just because you want to doesn't seem like the best way

to 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 over there.

I just wrote about it a couple of weeks

ago, because I'm back to work at The Journal.

And Trump's just opened, or launching, a Trump Tower

in Tbilisi that we wrote about.

And that just feels like, now, just sort

of par for the course, even though, when

I was moving into Russia--

Sure, they got a drug company,

they work for the Pentagon, whatever.

It's easy.

But when I was moving to Russia 10 years ago,

we still had some sort of outrage on that.

But we published that story.

And then the next day, ProPublica

blew us away with the Donald Trump Jr. wedding.

And it was just, there's story, after story,

after story, nonstop.

Yeah, yeah.

When you're at work now, and one of your colleagues

is like, who took my peanut butter,

are you like, I was in [bleep] 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.

[applause]

This Cursed Beautiful Land,phenomenal book,

Evan Gershkovich.

We'll be right back.

- Thanks so much. - Dude.

[applause]

[music playing]

[audio logo]

Hey, that's our show.

But before we go, we're going to check

in with your host for the rest of the week,

Mr. Jordan Klepper. Jordan.

[cheering, applause]

Talk to me.

What do you got your eye on this week?

Pandas, Jon.

Or, to be grammatically correct, "pandi."

Ping Ping and Fu Qiang have officially

made it to Atlanta, the same city

where rapper Ludacris lives.

Pretty cool.

Now, the only question is, will they,

or maybe a little bit of this?

You know what I'm saying.

Will the-- will the-- will the pandas mate?

No.

Gross.

No.

Will they put a key in the lock and open the zoo enclosure

so Ludacris can meet them and then dance to his music,

you know.

Get your mind out of the gutter there, Jon.

I apologize, I see.

Although, after that, when nobody's watching,

maybe they'll--

[laughter]

Maybe the pandas will eat bamboo?

Oh, is that what the kids are calling it now, huh?

JON: Jordan Klepper, everybody.

Here is, your moment of zen.

We're going with superintelligence now, Jake.

Superintelligence, which I think,

is a great new vernacular on this term.

This AI race, you know, people

calling for guardrails that the president has rejected--

Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.

It's SI.

Sorry.