The Interviews | Evan Gershkovich, Marlon James, CMAT, John Wilson

The Daily Show: Ears Edition

This episode of The Daily Show: Ears Edition features four distinct guests reflecting on their craft amid complex global and cultural landscapes. WSJ correspondent Evan Gershkovich details his wrongful imprisonment in

Key takeaways

• Evan Gershkovich spent 16 months in Russian prisons on false espionage charges before being released in a prisoner swap involving Paul Whelan and an FSB assassin.
• Marlon James describes his novel as an act of record-keeping for marginalized queer experiences, noting that fiction often preserves internal histories that official records erase.

Main topics

• Foreign journalism and imprisonment in Russia
• Queer literature and cultural erasure in Jamaica

Notable quotes

"if you call the war a war and not what they were calling it a special military operation, you could go to prison for 10 years."

Conclusion

The episode delivers a compelling blend of geopolitical analysis, literary

Transcript preview

Speaker 6 (0:00) You're listening to Comedy Central. Speaker 5 (0:18) tonight Speaker 5 (0:22) 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. Speaker 5 (0:51) Book is Phenomenal. Thank you so much beautiful writing it I'm telling you it is 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 gonna learn? Speaker 4 (1:11) You know, we'll see maybe if the book fails, it's a good idea. No Speaker 5 (1:17) When 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? Speaker 4 (1:32) 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. Okay. 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 Speaker 5 (2:07) was The writing that you have, I think we obviously have a caricature in this country about what Russia's like in the way that I think you sort of anywhere you live in middle America, they think of New York, but you can't even walk. I was stabbed four times on the, you know, and then they get here and go like, it's just musicals. Like. Speaker 5 (2:28) 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. Well, Speaker 4 (2:40) I mean, 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 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, you know, 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. At Speaker 5 (3:18) that time, as an American Russian journalist, did you feel more in a... in a protected bubble than maybe some of your Russian counterparts might have felt there? Did you feel more protected? Speaker 4 (3:33) Yeah, absolutely. So foreign journalists were treated as kind of like quasi-diplomats at that point. Right. You know, like, 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... right for, you know, right 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. Or, you know, you're... And Speaker 5 (4:06) that's a Speaker 4 (4:06) three-month, Speaker 5 (4:06) we Speaker 4 (4:06) say Speaker 5 (4:06) in the book, like, every three months you'd have to get your permit. Speaker 4 (4:10) 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 we took that as a signal of kind of like, you know, if they don't like us being there anymore, they can let these visas run out. Sort of the easy way of handling it. Speaker 5 (4:34) 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 Speaker 4 (4:46) 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, and 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 Speaker 5 (5:20) just changed the names of things randomly. Speaker 5 (5:24) And then penalize journalists if they don't go along with it. Very easy. How weird. How weird. Yeah. Speaker 5 (5:32) 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. Speaker 4 (5:48) 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 fun. It's not not happening. It's not not, you know, a little creep. But, yeah, it was a very different situation then for what we were going through. I mean, so after these censorship laws are passed, the 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? 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. Speaker 5 (6:28) Are you so they they're literally just terminally Speaker 4 (6:32) on Twitter? Like, is that seems like it? That's X now. Since I got back, it's X now, apparently. Oh, no, I'm not aware of that. I missed that chance. Speaker 5 (6:42) 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, Speaker 4 (7:15) 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, 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... Half-truths, basically, is how propaganda Speaker 5 (7:47) works. That's right. It has to be something that resonates. Speaker 4 (7:50) And Speaker 5 (7:50) 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, Speaker 4 (8:05) you know, we were debating whether we should be there or not, and, you know, 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 there 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. Speaker 5 (8:36) And Speaker 4 (8:36) the read that we had was that 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, you know, the terms were, next year you need to do a better job of catching traitors, foreign spies, and saboteurs. 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. 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. What? They got a lot of things. They're Speaker 5 (9:23) just like us. Just Speaker 4 (9:24) like us. Speaker 5 (9:25) Except they eat more fish. Speaker 4 (9:28) And so it's sort of the norm. You know, 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. 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, the Russians were telling the Americans that Paul Whelan, who was arrested on espionage charges. Explain Speaker 5 (10:38) that. So when you say they're looking for an American, it is, 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. It'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. Speaker 4 (10:55) I mean, not to make it too cynical, but it's kind of like that because 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 bodyguard for Putin. Right. And Germany sentences him to life in prison. They have, you know, call them 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 Vadim Krasikov leaves Germany. Speaker 5 (11:29) Right. Speaker 4 (11:30) And they also have Navalny in their back pocket, 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 pro, you know, sort of target that will cause a loud, loud uproar. 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. Listen, the case was rightfully so international Speaker 5 (12:07) news and it got everywhere. And it was a guy basically just coming to you and saying this is sensitive here. So it seemed, Speaker 4 (12:15) 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. I mean, the full-scale invasion. Right. And he had left Russia. And, but, you know, all hands on deck. Biggest ground invasion in Europe since World War II. Right. 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. Speaker 7 (12:55) And Speaker 4 (12:55) so we start reporting this story and talking to 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 really enough, you know, that's the main signal that right we missed I mean myself but us as a newsroom And he said that it would take him another who take him some time right basically now Speaker 5 (13:28) is a second me Speaker 4 (13:29) 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 Look, well, we got one and then he gives the green light to go ahead go get him and jacking one exactly and then they can go say we caught him red-handed and You know the rest is what was in the news and you end up in this Speaker 5 (14:10) labyrinth for 16 months of really Speaker 5 (14:16) 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 are putting on and you would say to them, you know, I'm not a spy, right? And they're like, well, what different and we were all just I Speaker 4 (14:46) mean, there's my favorite there's my favorite moment with the 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 exercise. And Speaker 5 (15:09) he Speaker 4 (15:09) 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. You know, the big secret has been revealed. It's it's it's shockingly nonchalant. But it's also I think it's important to get. for people who don't know Russia that well. It's very calculating. So, Victoria Roshan, a Ukrainian journalist, 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, a play, a mirage. And so I, you know, you're talking about these circles of hell. 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. You write about when they have Ukrainian prisoners Speaker 5 (16:20) 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, Speaker 4 (16:27) central. Speaker 5 (16:28) Yeah, yeah, Central. 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 Speaker 4 (16:50) feeder. The feeder. The feeder. Right. It's 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, Speaker 5 (17:12) you get to go for a walk in a very small room. Speaker 4 (17:15) On the roof of the prison, there's just this netting above you. And this is Lefortova. Lefortova in Moscow. It's pronounced Lefortova. Correct. Speaker 5 (17:26) Or Le Speaker 4 (17:26) Fortelot, maybe. That's exactly right. I think maybe that. It's Speaker 5 (17:29) French. Speaker 4 (17:30) 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 snapper. 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. Speaker 5 (18:07) And you kind of lean down and stick Speaker 4 (18:10) your head through. Speaker 5 (18:12) how 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 Speaker 4 (18:24) guess you're really lonely. You want to chat. You know, you start talking to yourself after a while when you're installed. Well, you even say you Speaker 5 (18:30) didn't do it for a while. And when you finally poked your head through the feeder, they were all like, well, Speaker 4 (18:34) it's about time. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, they were like, why weren't you out here? 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. Speaker 5 (18:46) 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. Speaker 5 (19:00) I feel like you're just this dude that I'd be like watching a Giants game with. I kind of am. Right. I am. But what is it when the ordinary meets the extraordinary in these, how do you find within yourself the resilience to