WSJ Journalist Baselessly Charged with Espionage in Russia
The Rich Zeoli Show
Audacy
4.9 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 7 April 2023
⏱️ 22 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
Dr. Victoria Coates—former Deputy National Security Advisor & Senior Research Fellow at The Heritage Foundation—joins The Rich Zeoli Show to discuss Russia’s wrongful detention of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich. According to The New York Times, Russia has formally charged Gershkovich with espionage, an allegation that U.S. officials vehemently deny. Dr. Coates also analyzes a newly released review of the Biden Administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan. National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby bizarrely claimed the administration had a “lot to be proud of” regarding their devastatingly chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan which left behind billions of dollars in military equipment and resulted in the death of thirteen U.S. troops.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | All right, so the Phillies are winning the Home Opener so far, which is good news. |
| 0:03.8 | And I'm sure very, very good news for Philadelphia's own Dr. Victoria Cotes, |
| 0:08.3 | former Deputy National Security Adviser, and Senior Research Fellow at the Heritage Foundation. |
| 0:14.4 | Hello, Dr. Cotes. |
| 0:16.8 | Hi, Rich. How are you doing? |
| 0:18.1 | I'm happy the Phillies are winning. |
| 0:20.5 | It's always a good day. It's sunny when they win, regardless of what the weather is doing. |
| 0:24.5 | And it is freezing in South Philadelphia. I went down to Chukies and Peas with some buddies |
| 0:27.6 | before the game, and it is freezing down there. |
| 0:30.9 | It absolutely is. We'll be going tomorrow, and we're going to be bundled up. |
| 0:35.8 | Well, enjoy it. Enjoy it. First on the agenda, I just got this, I guess, breaking news story that |
| 0:42.1 | my executive producer Matt DeSantis sent my way. Russia formally charges the detained American |
| 0:48.0 | reporter with espionage, according to the state media over there in Russia. |
| 0:54.2 | Evan Gerskovich, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, was detained last week. |
| 0:58.9 | The Journal and US officials have vehemently rejected the Russian Authority's allegations |
| 1:03.3 | against him, and I guess now he's been formally charged. What does all this mean in terms of |
| 1:07.8 | how the United States of America gets him back? |
| 1:11.3 | Well, it's unfortunately not a good news story. I think what a lot of our Putin learned earlier |
| 1:18.4 | this year was that the Biden administration is incredibly eager to get certain hostages home. |
| 1:26.5 | And so we had the exchange of Victor Boot, the so-called merchant of death for the basketball |
| 1:32.3 | player Brittany Griner, which was in no way an equitable trade. I'm sure I don't agree with |
| 1:39.3 | Brittany on terms of politics, but she's an American citizen. What she had done if she even did it |
... |
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