Happy New Year! 2020! The year of... I don't know. Really good vision. The year of the Barbara

Walters. These jokes are going to get old really fast. You know what hasn't gotten old yet?

The one-time President Trump called up President Zelensky in Ukraine and asked him to investigate

the Biden's. You might remember, it got President Trump impeached last year. His Senate trial

is proximate. Anyway, back in April, before the world really knew the name Zelensky,

we did an episode all about the guy on the other end of that phone call because his story is

incredible. And because we're still taking a little tiny, well-deserved break from daily

podcasting, we are serving up that episode again today. You're welcome!

Okay, crazy news out of Ukraine. Before we get into it, can I have you say your name

and how you want us to ID you on the show? My name is Vladislav Dovetsyn. I am a Russian-American

journalist and editor. I am based in Ukraine and France and between Paris and Kiev.

And I am the chief of the Odessa Review, a fine journal of culture and policy. And I'm an expert

on Ukrainian and Eastern European politics. So we had an election here in Ukraine, which I

monitors an election monitor, which is a historical election.

Ukraine's president, Petro Poroshenko, was voted out of office after five years for a few

different reasons. And the Ukrainian voters, by an overwhelming majority, has put into power

an amateur comedian television actor into the presidential chair. By a landslide.

Yes, on Sunday night, I watched the results as all the other journalists and analysts covering

the elections. It was between 72 and 74 and a half percent projected that Volodymyr Zelensky

received in the count. I'm feeling good. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. And who is this gentleman?

This gentleman is a 41-year-old actor, a comedian. He is a guy who plays the president on TV.

It's as if Martin Sheen, after having played President Bartlett on the West Wing, was elected to

...