Speaker 1: This is Gary and Shannon and you're listening to KFI
Speaker 1: AM six forty the Gary and Shannon Show on demand
Speaker 1: on the iHeartRadio app. It is August second. Shannon's out today.
Speaker 1: Back on Monday. A lot to get through today, man.
Speaker 1: I was reading through a couple of different descriptions of
Speaker 1: the incredible deal to get Evan Gershkevich and three other
Speaker 1: Americans or American interests out of Russia and the twenty
Speaker 1: other people that were involved in this massive, massive prisoner swap.
Speaker 2: So we'll go through some of the details about that.
Speaker 1: Gavin Newsom, governor of the state of California, is now
Speaker 1: asking that Harvey Weinstein be brought back here to California.
Speaker 1: Just let them die in New York. That kind of
Speaker 1: seems like what's going to happen. Wall Street's not having
Speaker 1: a great day. The dal Jones industrial average was down
Speaker 1: more than nine hundred points earlier. Next hour, we'll give
Speaker 1: it a little bit of time to breathe and then
Speaker 1: talk about what's going on on Wall Street, and then
Speaker 1: a couple of fun things. Number One, how dogs help
Speaker 1: their owners become healthier. As a renewed dog owner, I
Speaker 1: suppose I've had a puppy for about a month. Now,
Speaker 1: I feel healthier, or I'm supposed to. Also, what's going
Speaker 1: on with all of the stuff that you put under
Speaker 1: the airline seats. We'll be doing Terror in the Skies
Speaker 1: a little bit later since it's Friday. Also, we do
Speaker 1: a lot of fun stuff here on KFI, including the
Speaker 1: nine news Nuggets you need to know at the end
Speaker 1: of our show. Also what you Learned segment, so you
Speaker 1: can always let us know what you learned this week
Speaker 1: on The Gary and Shannon Show. All you got to
Speaker 1: do is leave us a quick message on the iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: app Talkback. You just hit that little microphone, say your piece,
Speaker 1: tell us what you learned this week on the Gary
Speaker 1: and Shannon Show, and we'll get to that late in
Speaker 1: the show today.
Speaker 3: That's when it became real. We flew over Ireland, then
Speaker 3: Canada and into America, and then I knew I was home,
Speaker 3: looking forward to seeing my family down here and just
Speaker 3: recuperating from five year, seven months and five days of
Speaker 3: just absolute nonsense by the Russian government.
Speaker 2: Well that is a.
Speaker 1: Paul Wheeland, former marine who was arrested a few years
Speaker 1: ago on a actually was a pleasure trip. He was
Speaker 1: actually in Russia to help a friend to go to
Speaker 1: a friend's wedding, but to also help that friend's family
Speaker 1: kind of negotiate their way through Russia, a place that
Speaker 1: he had been many times. Of course, Evan Gershkovich, the
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal reporter, was the biggest name supposedly of
Speaker 1: the Americans that were released in this deal that came
Speaker 1: together yesterday. But as you look at what happened, this
Speaker 1: was an amazing amount of international foreign relations, diplomacy, balancing Act,
Speaker 1: magic Act in some cases, and all of it was
Speaker 1: all of it was very very well put together. You
Speaker 1: don't have to like the whatever, you don't have to.
Speaker 1: There's not a political statement one way or the other.
Speaker 1: This was an incredibly well put together plan that even
Speaker 1: up to the very end, until the plane carrying Americans
Speaker 1: much down in Anchor A, Turkey yesterday, there was still
Speaker 1: a chance that this thing was going to go sideways.
Speaker 1: And yes, there is some criticism of the kinds of
Speaker 1: people that we release in order to get back journalists,
Speaker 1: basketball players, marines on vacation, that kind of thing. We
Speaker 1: give back bad guys, We give back actual spies, weapons,
Speaker 1: weapons dealers, and murderers. So all of that goes into
Speaker 1: this story about how this prisoner swap, the largest, the
Speaker 1: most impactful prisoner swap we've seen since the Cold War,
Speaker 1: and how all of it came together kind of by
Speaker 1: the seat of everybody's pants.
Speaker 2: Evan Gershkevich was a reporter.
Speaker 1: He was talking about how he, in fact, he was
Speaker 1: working on a story specifically about how Vladimir Putin had
Speaker 1: taken on a policy of stealing, slash, kidnapping foreigners, most
Speaker 1: of them Americans or Western you know, citizens of Western countries,
Speaker 1: capturing them and then using them as pawns, you know,
Speaker 1: drumming up some fake espionag charges and then using them
Speaker 1: as pawns to try to deal with these other countries
Speaker 1: and get his favorite bad guys out of those other
Speaker 1: countries' prisons. He goes to a restaurant, does Evan Gershkevich
Speaker 1: actually to meet one of his contacts, and is picked up.
Speaker 1: And again it's because he was putting pressure on and
Speaker 1: asking questions about Vladimir Putin and his policy of kidnapping foreigners.
Speaker 1: And the Wall Street Journal, the reporters that work with,
Speaker 1: the editors that work with Evan Gershkovich realized that specific
Speaker 1: day that they couldn't find him, and he wasn't responding
Speaker 1: to his phone. It was he wasn't responding to any messages,
Speaker 1: and his phone stopped pinging, his location was off, and
Speaker 1: they knew something was wrong. So they contacted his mother,
Speaker 1: Evan Gershkovitch's mother, Ella, and that was just a year
Speaker 1: or so ago, and they told him sorry. They told
Speaker 1: mom Ella that there was a problem and that Evan
Speaker 1: Gershkovich had become basically the character in the owned the
Speaker 1: story that he was writing about Vladimir Putin's kidnapping of foreigners.
Speaker 1: While this happened, the Americans had been at least in
Speaker 1: conversations about getting Paul Wheelan back from Russia in exchange
Speaker 1: for somebody. And one of the things that they were
Speaker 1: trying to do was wrap up the Alexi Navalney imprisonment
Speaker 1: in all of this and work a deal where they
Speaker 1: could get Paul Wheelan, they could get Alexi Navalny, and
Speaker 1: the Germans would give up the bad that we've all
Speaker 1: heard about, this assassin that killed somebody in Berlin, and
Speaker 1: the Germans were dead set against this. Well, a wrench
Speaker 1: gets thrown into that in February, when Alexi Navolny died
Speaker 1: in prison. So if you go back a few years
Speaker 1: before that, Jake Sullivan, the National Security Advisor, had been
Speaker 1: calling the German National Security Advisor his equivalent, basically to
Speaker 1: see if in fact they could work out a deal.
Speaker 1: And the White House was working to see if Russia
Speaker 1: would accept a deal that would bundle a bunch of
Speaker 1: the Russians that we have here in America. But they're
Speaker 1: all non violent charges, non espionage and things like that.
Speaker 1: The problem is Russia doesn't care about them. They don't
Speaker 1: care about their citizens the way we do. They don't
Speaker 1: care about somebody who gets caught on some financial crimes
Speaker 1: thing here in the United States and we put him
Speaker 1: in jail through the American legal system. They just don't
Speaker 1: give a writ. So they wanted the big guy. They
Speaker 1: wanted the guy out of Germany. In November, this is
Speaker 1: November of last year, Washington orders offers the Kremlin four
Speaker 1: undercover operatives for military and foreign intelligence agencies that were
Speaker 1: held in Europe. They're called illegals, and they create you know,
Speaker 1: this false identity. These are the ones that the movies
Speaker 1: are made out of. There's a third, a Russian military
Speaker 1: intelligence officer using the identity of a Brazilian academic, and
Speaker 1: Poland had arrested a fourth born in Moscow Spanish passport
Speaker 1: on espionage charges near the Ukrainian border. So all of
Speaker 1: these things, all of these characters are playing a part
Speaker 1: in this. But there is a there's a very important
Speaker 1: press conference if Vladimir Putin gives and there's a comment
Speaker 1: that he made in that press conference right before the
Speaker 1: end of the year, which was clearly a message to
Speaker 1: the United States and to Western countries about exactly what
Speaker 1: deal he would be willing to make. We've been telling
Speaker 1: you the story about what happened to get specifically to
Speaker 1: get the prisoners back. There's a massive prisoner swamp that
Speaker 1: involved twenty four different people, several different countries, and we'll
Speaker 1: get back to that here in just a second. For
Speaker 1: the third time in the last four seasons, Mike Trout
Speaker 1: he's not going to play a full season of baseball.
Speaker 1: He's going to miss the rest of this season. They
Speaker 1: said there was a second meniscus tair of his left knee.
Speaker 1: His rehab assignment in Triple A lasted two innings. He
Speaker 1: came back to Southern California for evaluation after he had
Speaker 1: some discomfort in his knee. The MRI came back clean,
Speaker 1: trout cid. He expected a restart of his rehab process,
Speaker 1: and then his leg hurt really really bad, so they
Speaker 1: said there's another one that's going to have to another
Speaker 1: meniscus tear that's going to have to be surgically repaired.
Speaker 1: Day seven of the Olympic Games, we're going to see
Speaker 1: twenty five sets of metals handed out today, knockout stage.
Speaker 1: The men's soccer tournament is underway, France taking on Argentina
Speaker 1: and a massive quarterfinal US trailing Morocco. We saw of swimming.
Speaker 1: We'll do a lot of track and field today. There's
Speaker 1: some three on three basketball and swimming, all of that stuff.
Speaker 1: So this prisoner swamp, in fact, I would Jacob, would
Speaker 1: you say, this is kind of a breakdown of everything
Speaker 1: that we're doing, this prisoner swamp, everything that we've known
Speaker 1: absolutely Okay, then hit the button.
Speaker 4: So why doesn't somebody tell me what they think.
Speaker 2: Is going on? Those can be hard explain this to
Speaker 2: me like I'm a two year old. Okay, you need
Speaker 2: a breakdown with Gary and Shannon. All right, So you
Speaker 2: remember the name Alexi Navalney.
Speaker 1: He was this British dissident, sorry, a Russian dissident who
Speaker 1: had unveiled a lot of stuff about Vladimir Putin, how
Speaker 1: he was an absolute maniacal tyrant who was hoarding money.
Speaker 1: One of the key pieces of what made Alexi Navoalney
Speaker 1: as famous and as hated by Putin as he was
Speaker 1: is he put together a video that showed Vladimir Putin
Speaker 1: one point two billion dollar Black Sea mansion, and Putin
Speaker 1: hated this guy, so he put him in prison. There
Speaker 1: were discussions to get alexiing Navalney out of prison, or
Speaker 1: at least pressure internationally to do so, and one of
Speaker 1: the things that they were talking about was trading this
Speaker 1: Vadim Kasakov, who is literally a Russian hit man who
Speaker 1: had killed a guy in Berlin in a park in
Speaker 1: broad daylight. The Germans captured him, the Germans put him
Speaker 1: in prison for the rest of his life, and there
Speaker 1: were discussions about if the Germans were able to give
Speaker 1: up this hitman, maybe Alexi Navalney gets out of prison.
Speaker 1: While that is all going on, in the background, Evan
Speaker 1: Gershkevich last March gets picked up by the Russian FSB
Speaker 1: stuck in jail. They accused him of being of being
Speaker 1: a spy. And it's all because he was putting similar
Speaker 1: pressure on Vladimir Putin. In fact, he was talking about
Speaker 1: and working on stories about Vladimir Putin and his let's
Speaker 1: see his propensity to kidnap foreigners and hold them hostage.
Speaker 2: Basically. Now, again, all.
Speaker 1: Of this is a very weird thing because the United
Speaker 1: States has been working with Germany trying to pressure or
Speaker 1: entice Germany to give up this Russian hitman so that
Speaker 1: they can get some of their prisoners back. Now, in
Speaker 1: January of this year, Evan Gershkovitch's mom flew to the
Speaker 1: World Economic Forum in Davos to meet with Oloff with
Speaker 1: a guy with Oloff Schultz's chief of staff, Olof Schultz
Speaker 1: being the German Chancellor, to try to convince him and say, listen,
Speaker 1: you have the key to getting my son out of jail.
Speaker 1: The key is this Russian hitman. In February, just this year,
Speaker 1: Tucker Carlson sits down with Vladimir Putin and brings up
Speaker 1: the issue of Evan Gershkovitch. And near the end of
Speaker 1: this conversation that he had with Vladimir Putin, Tucker Carlson says,
Speaker 1: Evan Gershkevich is not a spy, clearly, he's just a
Speaker 1: kid and he's just being held hostage. Maybe maybe it's
Speaker 1: a bad look for you to hold this reporter in
Speaker 1: an attempt to get a hit man, convicted murderer out
Speaker 1: of jail in Germany and putin leans in. If you
Speaker 1: saw this interview and he said what he wants in
Speaker 1: return is a person serving a sentence in an allied
Speaker 1: country of the US, a very very clear message because
Speaker 1: remember in December he had done the same thing. He
Speaker 1: said that he wanted one specific person. Everybody knew who
Speaker 1: he was talking about. Well, again, February is when all
Speaker 1: of these different countries come together at the Munich Security Conference.
Speaker 1: This is an un you can bet not on the agenda,
Speaker 1: but definitely something that everybody was talking about was this
Speaker 1: form of what they thought was going to be a
Speaker 1: deal to get Alexi Navolney Evan Gershkevich out of Russia
Speaker 1: in exchange for Vadim Maxic kassik Kov or whatever's name
Speaker 1: is this Russian hit man. But that day Alexi Navolney
Speaker 1: dies in a prison in Siberia. He dies mysterious circumstances,
Speaker 1: and at first there was some concern that the whole
Speaker 1: thing was going to blow up. In May, the German
Speaker 1: Federal Intelligence Service opened its own investigation, introducing new stipulations. Okay, listen,
Speaker 1: if we are going to release Vadim Kasakov, then Germany
Speaker 1: gets as many prisoners back as possible as possible. Smash
Speaker 1: cut to July. President Biden sends a letter to Oloff
Speaker 1: Schulz a request that this be finally done, where Germany
Speaker 1: releases this guy that they have convicted of murder and
Speaker 1: in fact from his self quarantine in his home. Remember,
Speaker 1: the president tested positive for COVID, had to leave Vegas
Speaker 1: go back. This was the day that he announced he
Speaker 1: was dropping out of the presidential race. He was on
Speaker 1: the phone with Slovenia saying, if you can put together
Speaker 1: your end of the deal and release some of your
Speaker 1: people to Russia, this whole thing may come together.
Speaker 2: Eventually. They were able to pull.
Speaker 1: All of the strings, dozens and dozens of lear jets
Speaker 1: back and forth across Europe, putting together this whole plan,
Speaker 1: making sure that all of the prisoners were going to
Speaker 1: their respective places. And even yesterday when I was listening
Speaker 1: to some of this, originally were listening to different reports
Speaker 1: from different news agencies. They were very careful to say,
Speaker 1: until the planes touched down in anchor A, Turkey, we
Speaker 1: don't know if this is real or not. Obviously, the
Speaker 1: Americans are back on American soil, so that's that is
Speaker 1: a done deal. But the amazing amount of work that
Speaker 1: it took from all of these different countries. News out
Speaker 1: of DC is that Vice President Harris's campaign has announced
Speaker 1: raising three hundred and ten million dollars last month, considering
Speaker 1: it wasn't even a full.
Speaker 2: Month for them.
Speaker 1: The Democratic National Committee the affiliated entities far outpaced former
Speaker 1: President Trump's campaign, but Trump's campaign still brought in one
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty nine million for the month of July,
Speaker 1: which has nothing to sneeze at. So the vice president
Speaker 1: Vice President's campaign says it goes into August with three
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy seven million on hand. That's above the
Speaker 1: three twenty seven that is for Trump's team. Several suspects
Speaker 1: have been arrested in violent protests that came after the
Speaker 1: fatal stabbing of three kids in Northwest England. Prime Minister
Speaker 1: there Caro Starmer has condemned the unrest, says it's far
Speaker 1: right hatred.
Speaker 2: He's found to end in Mayhem, says.
Speaker 1: The police across the UK will be given more resources
Speaker 1: to stop a breakdown in law and order on our street.
Speaker 1: Speaking of more than thirty two hundred people arrested on
Speaker 1: college campuses over the spring during those pro Palestinian tent encampments,
Speaker 1: many of the students have already seen those charges dismissed,
Speaker 1: but the cases have yet to be resolved for a
Speaker 1: bunch of other people at campuses, they said they saw
Speaker 1: the highest number of arrests.
Speaker 2: This is a new.
Speaker 1: Analysis from the Associated Press. We're talking about this very
Speaker 1: very detailed prisoner swap that led to this probably the
Speaker 1: biggest since the Cold War deal to return Russian prisoners
Speaker 1: to Russia and hostages arguably back to the countries that
Speaker 1: from who whence they came? Four Americans came back last night.
Speaker 1: There were eight Russians that made their way back into Russia,
Speaker 1: greeted by Vladimir Putin in Moscow, and the biggest one
Speaker 1: in terms of name recognition, the biggest Russian was Vadim Kazakhov.
Speaker 1: This guy is a Russian hit man, former intelligence officer
Speaker 1: who was convicted of murdering a guy in a park
Speaker 1: in Berlin. This he was found guilty of murder back
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty one in Germany. They said that he
Speaker 1: had committed an act of state terrorism on behalf of Russia,
Speaker 1: carrying out this very public execution to get rid of
Speaker 1: one of the Kremlin's opponents. And the murder itself was
Speaker 1: of a guy named Zeleem Khan kang Goshvili. They said
Speaker 1: that he was a rebel leader, and Russia said he
Speaker 1: was an Islamist extremist who was targeting Russian security forces. Now,
Speaker 1: the reason they know it was Vadim Krazakov, among others,
Speaker 1: is his tattoo on his left shoulder. You could see
Speaker 1: a tattoo of a crowned panther skull encircled by wings.
Speaker 1: That is a very specific tattoo that links him, I
Speaker 1: use that word importantly links him to the special force
Speaker 1: of Russia's Interior Ministry called the Lynx. It's been deployed
Speaker 1: to fight terrorism in other places around the world and
Speaker 1: the Caucuses. And his right forearm also has a tattoo
Speaker 1: of a snake poised to strike.
Speaker 2: So here's the thing.
Speaker 1: This Vadim Krazakov has been doing all kinds of work
Speaker 1: for Vladimir Putin, and they were both former officers in
Speaker 1: the biggest spy agency there in Russia, the FSB.
Speaker 2: That's probably where they met.
Speaker 1: Asakov may have even been a member of the personal
Speaker 1: security detail for Vladimir Putin. Family members say that he
Speaker 1: talked about having shot target practice with Vladimir Putin at
Speaker 1: an FSB shooting range. German prosecutors said that Krasokov was
Speaker 1: probably working with the FSB department that specializes in wet
Speaker 1: operations abroad when he pulled this murder back in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 2: He's a veteran of the Soviet war in Afghanistan.
Speaker 1: He served in an Interior Ministry special forces unit and
Speaker 1: an elite FSB anti terrorism squad. German prosecutor said that
Speaker 1: he was involved in killings inside Russia. There was a
Speaker 1: Russian businessman back in twenty thirteen who was killed. Another
Speaker 1: one would have been in the year two thousand, a
Speaker 1: former advisor to Putin who got into an argument with Vladimir.
Speaker 1: He was killed by a guy who approached on a
Speaker 1: bike and killed him with a single shot to the head.
Speaker 2: Oh remember that shooting in twenty thirteen.
Speaker 1: Also a guy who rode up on a bicycle shot
Speaker 1: the guy point blank. Oh and then in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: the guy in Germany was killed by a guy on
Speaker 1: a bike riding up shot point blank. Throughout the entire investigation,
Speaker 1: Vadim Krazykov claimed that he was there as a tourist.
Speaker 1: He was there because he was having an affair with
Speaker 1: a married woman, and he said his name was Vadim Sokolov.
Speaker 1: In fact, until yesterday the Russian government also said that
Speaker 1: he was just some tourist. It wasn't until yesterday that
Speaker 1: they admitted that he was an FSB agent, that he
Speaker 1: was a military card carrying member of the FSB, and
Speaker 1: that he was in fact Putin's buddy. They got who
Speaker 1: they wanted, and we got an important journalist back, among others.
Speaker 1: The politics of this thing now are playing out. Was
Speaker 1: this a last minute thing before President and rides off
Speaker 1: into the sunset? Was there something to fear of whether
Speaker 1: or not President Trump is going to be back in office.
Speaker 1: The Kremlin, like I said, had acknowledged for the first
Speaker 1: time that some of the Russians that were held in
Speaker 1: the West were in fact spies. Of course, families of
Speaker 1: free dissidents meanwhile express their joy at the surprise release.
Speaker 1: In fact, I talked about Evan Gershkevich's mother, Ella. She
Speaker 1: was called to the White House and was told nothing,
Speaker 1: just that she was going to be meeting with the president.
Speaker 1: And she told the Wall Street Journal, well, usually they
Speaker 1: don't ask you to meet the president if it's bad news.
Speaker 1: So President Vladimir Putin hugged each of the eight Russian
Speaker 1: retorneys at at Moscow Airport praised them with state awards.
Speaker 1: Among them was that Vadim Krazykov that I've been mentioning,
Speaker 1: this Russian assassin who was serving a life sentence in
Speaker 1: Germany for the twenty nineteen killing of a former Chechen
Speaker 1: fighter in a park in Berlin. Now there was some
Speaker 1: criticism about that kind of a deal, the kinds of
Speaker 1: people that we give back to Russia in order to
Speaker 1: get something like a journalist out of captivity. Jake Sullivan
Speaker 1: is the National Security Advisor.
Speaker 5: These are hard decisions, As the President has said, you
Speaker 5: have to think hard about who you release in a
Speaker 5: prisoner exchange. That's been true for decades. But at the
Speaker 5: end of the day, the President looked at this deal
Speaker 5: and he said, what we are getting the value of
Speaker 5: human life, the value of putting families back together. The
Speaker 5: value of standing up for freedom of the press far
Speaker 5: exceeds what we are giving up by sending a few
Speaker 5: more criminals back to Russia.
Speaker 2: Now here's another undercurrent in all of this.
Speaker 1: Obviously I mentioned when I was talking about the breakdown
Speaker 1: of when each of these conversations was taking place. The
Speaker 1: day that President Biden dropped out of the presidential race,
Speaker 1: he had been on the phone with the leader of
Speaker 1: Slovenia to try to get them to buy into this deal,
Speaker 1: because they became an important piece in this gigantic trade deal.
Speaker 1: And there are questions about whether this is now a
Speaker 1: political thing. Was there something to President Biden not having
Speaker 1: to run for office that helped push this thing over
Speaker 1: the edge? Is there something in there where he's got
Speaker 1: nothing to lose, he's not up for reelection. Can he
Speaker 1: make a deal now that he doesn't necessarily have to
Speaker 1: answer for it.
Speaker 6: I still get it done, even though I was to
Speaker 6: seeing in a second to not I'm stuck with me
Speaker 6: as president for a while. There's no way out. Okay,
Speaker 6: they got me for at least another one hundred or
Speaker 6: ninety days or so.
Speaker 2: So that did not even do.
Speaker 6: With that It had to do with the opportunity of
Speaker 6: trying to convince it that's the one last country to say, Okay,
Speaker 6: they'll step up now.
Speaker 1: There was also part of that undercurrent is do foreign
Speaker 1: allies of ours have some concern about whether or not
Speaker 1: Donald Trump is going to be elected president and if
Speaker 1: that would have impacted anything going forward, would Russia have
Speaker 1: been more reluctant to give up the prisoners that they have,
Speaker 1: or would our allies be more reluctant to get involved
Speaker 1: in a deal like that. Ohio Representative Warren Davidson, Republican
Speaker 1: on the Foreign Affairs Committee in the House, said maybe
Speaker 1: there is something to that.
Speaker 7: The expectation around the world that Donald Trump may well
Speaker 7: be the next president is resulting in shuffling in foreign policy.
Speaker 7: If you look at NATO countries, they're trying to insulate
Speaker 7: their policies in Ukraine from the Trump administration. So world
Speaker 7: leaders are reacting to the possibility, hopefully the probability that
Speaker 7: Donald Trump is in fact the forty seventh president of
Speaker 7: the United States, and maybe it had an influence. I
Speaker 7: don't know, but I am glad that these prisoners are free.
Speaker 1: John Kirby, White House spokesperson International Security Council had said,
Speaker 1: there's no evidence that anybody was afraid of, concerned with,
Speaker 1: or even talking about former and Trump when these deals
Speaker 1: were being made.
Speaker 4: There's absolutely zero evidence at all that this deal was
Speaker 4: brought about because of some potential fear of who might
Speaker 4: be the next president. This deal was brought about because
Speaker 4: the president had President Biden had alliances and partnerships and
Speaker 4: trust he could build on, particularly with the German Chancellor.
Speaker 1: Okay, so as great as this deal is, we get
Speaker 1: four Americans back or Americans American interests. I guess there
Speaker 1: is the sister of an American school teacher who says
Speaker 1: her family feels collectively stabbed in the back because her
Speaker 1: brother was not part of this deal. Mark Fogel, sixty
Speaker 1: three year old American arrested at a Moscow airport three
Speaker 1: years ago for having medical marijuana in his luggage, which
Speaker 1: his family and his lawyers say was prescribed to him
Speaker 1: for severe spinal pain. And again, like we saw with
Speaker 1: the Britney Grinder case, where that amount of the amount
Speaker 1: of hash oil that she had usually would result in
Speaker 1: a two week prison sentence and instead she got nine
Speaker 1: years in this case, very similar. Mark Fogel had medical
Speaker 1: marijuana in his luggage and was sentenced to fourteen years
Speaker 1: in prison on drug charges. Still in prison on a
Speaker 1: penal colony, and fogel Mark's sister said, the last thirty
Speaker 1: six hours have been gut wrenching. We really hoped that
Speaker 1: they were going to get Mark on that plane.
Speaker 2: She said.
Speaker 1: Mark called me yesterday morning, and when I realized that
Speaker 1: he was in Rabinsk, I knew that things were not
Speaker 1: going well because he should have been gone, She said.
Speaker 2: It's been a roller coaster.
Speaker 1: On Thursday, Jake Sullivan described Mark Fogel as wrongfully detained
Speaker 1: for the first time at this White House press briefing
Speaker 1: and said that they are still actively working to get
Speaker 1: his release from Russia. Let's not forget there are also
Speaker 1: Americans currently held in Gaza. There are plenty of hostages,
Speaker 1: American hostages, prisoners that are still being held in other places.
Speaker 1: This is not the be all end all, although it
Speaker 1: is a huge deal, it's not the end of these
Speaker 1: hostage negotiations all right. Up next, the Olympics still setting
Speaker 1: people's minds on fire. What's going on with women's boxing.
Speaker 1: We'll try to get to the bottom of it. Yes, Jacob,
Speaker 1: it's going to be another Gary and Shannon Show breakdown
Speaker 1: that's coming up next. You've been listening to The Gary
Speaker 1: and Shannon Show, you can always hear us live on
Speaker 1: KFI AM six forty nine am to one pm every
Speaker 1: Monday through Friday, and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: app