This is CBSI on the world.

I'm John Betts with my colleague Craig Unger.

He keeps a substack page.

He's a distinguished investigative journalist.

Craig and I over the years have dealt with a variety of whoppers.

I've sober surprise being the most recent whopper that Craig's written up.

If you all go to the short

version, that was the allegation that the Reagan campaign in 1980 very cleverly used their contacts

with a man who became the director of the CIA to make a deal with the Ukrainians, with the Israelis and the Iranians, to make certain that

the hostages that had been a failure of the Carter administration were not released until

after the election, and maybe even after the inauguration. However, that was then. We're now,

Paul Manafort served time. He was let out

because of COVID. And this is all in Craig's book, House of Trump, House of Putin. And then he was

gravely ill, Craig, as I recall. It was a Nixon goes to phlebitis moment. If he hadn't been out of jail,

he would have died torturously.

He's looking very pink-cheeked.

What is the recovery like?

He has recovered.

He's back in action, and he's been in Albania recently.

He was working for the failed candidacy of the president of Albania.

And there's some talk that he may even want to go back to Ukraine. I mean, one of the things that's so interesting to this, to me about this, is you see

in the Ukraine war that Russia has been sort of underperforming when it comes to the military.

...