The truth in Russia is always easy to discern because the Kremlin always lies, as in the most recent case concerning drones over Moscow, which looks like an obvious false flag operation.
including defendant himself. trace: david, what concerns a lot of people, it appears the administration appears to be baffled to how to proceed. i want to play a longer bite. mike tobin touched on this, a longer bite from john kirby. i ll get your response on the other side. watch. do you have any insight to why the russians are refusing him consular access? i wish we did. we still haven t been able to get consular access. that s an issue that we bring up through our embassy in moscow with the russians. i wish i had a good answer. we have to have consular access to evan. trace: we need a lot but we re not getting it. well, of course. it s unlikely that we will get it. it s going to be a question of what kind of pressure can be brought to bear on the russian authorities. the situation now for evan is
analogous to the situation with brittany grimes. but what we do have is the possibility to change the situation on the ground in ukraine and create a new set of facts. that might be the best way actually to get evan out of there. i don t think that the idea in arresting him was to have a trade. i think it was to intimidate the russian people and intimidate the foreign press. trace: very good insight. thanks, david satter for your time. meantime, the biden administration facing fierce backlash to its review of the deadly exit from afghanistan and the heavy blame they put on former president trump. pete hegseth and scott mann who testified about the fall of kabul are next. this whole thing has been a gutting experience. i never imagined i would witness the kind of gross abandonment
through our embassy in moscow. i wish i had a good answer for that. it s inexcusable. the wall street journal has called the charge of espionage nonsense. the president said let him go. gershkovich was caught red-handed but didn t offer detailed about what he allegedly says russia. the industry says the u.s. is fanning the hype about this case intending to put pressure on russia. they called that effort hopeless and senseless. trace? back to you. trace: thanks, mike. let s bring in author david satter, a journalist kicked out of russia almost a decade ago. great to have you on a. it s timely for us. something that you said earlier on this network this week pertains to the situation now. you said the problem now being they, russia, have always been