Leaders from Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Canada met virtually to discuss a proposed ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia
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This week, Tulsi Gabbard had her first brush with controversy as President Donald Trump’s director of national intelligence, when it became known that she had picked as her deputy a right-wing podcaster named Daniel Davis, who had regularly assailed the Israeli government and its war in Gaza, accusing Israel of “pursuing ethnic cleansing” and criticizing US support for what he called “Netanyahu’s war.” Within hours of Jewish Insider breaking this story on Wednesday, which sparked immediate criticism, Gabbard reversed course on appointing Davis, a senior fellow at the Koch-funded Defense Priorities think tank, to this powerful position that oversees the compiling of the President’s Daily Brief, the collection of intelligence assessments that goes to the White House and top policymakers.
Davis’ fervent opposition to Israel’s war—rooted in the non-interventionist tradition of the far right—was too much to bear for senators and Trump administration officials. He became a victim of the never-ending campaign mounted by pro-Israel hawks to keep such critical voices far from positions of power. But the focus on Davis’ stance on Israel distracted from a truly scandalous aspect of this near-appointment: By picking Davis, a former Army lieutenant colonel with no intelligence community experience, Gabbard sought to hire for this important and highly sensitive position a prolific disseminator of pro-Russia messaging, who himself has been embraced by state-controlled Russian media outlets for the positions he espouses and platforms. Yet Davis’ extensive amplification of pro-Putin talking points received little, if any, attention in the media coverage of this hullabaloo.
Davis posts episodes of his YouTube Deep Dive podcast daily; sometimes he produces multiple episodes a day. In recent months, most shows have focused on the Russia-Ukraine war, with Davis and his guests usually pounding on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and criticizing US assistance for Ukraine. There is not much, if any, criticism of Russian leader Vladimir Putin, his launching of the war, or the atrocities committed by his forces.
In a January episode typical of the show, retired Army Col. Douglas Macgregor called on Trump to walk away from Ukraine: “The win for us is extricating us from this tar baby, get out, say good bye move on… Announce we’re leaving, we’re out, we’re not going to do this anymore.” He noted that the United States should not even try to craft a negotiated end to the conflict. Davis agreed and said, “This is what makes sense.” He then cited a key Kremlin talking point, asserting that Russian leader Vladimir Putin has no interest in moving against other European nations and is only “focused on protecting the ethnic Russians in the eastern part of what was Ukraine.”
Because of conversations like these, Davis’ show, which has 134,000 subscribers on You Tube, has been regularly promoted on Russian state media. One private analysis obtained by Mother Jones shows that Russian state media outlets have cited Davis’ show nearly 300 times in the past 18 months. For instance, when Davis hosted Macgregor in late 2023 and he proclaimed the Russian economy was doing “brilliantly” and Moscow was about to win the war, Rossiyskaya Gazeta a government daily newspaper, published a news story on this episode under the headline, “Colonel Macgregor: Biden has made Putin stronger than ever.”
Macgregor has been, by far, the most frequent guest on Davis’ podcast, some weeks appearing several times. In 2020, Trump named him to be US ambassador to Germany, but after CNN revealed his history of making xenophobic and racist comments, his nomination died. Following Putin’s invasion of Russia in 2022, Macgregor often appeared on Fox News programs, spouting a pro-Putin line. He told Tucker Carlson that it would be pointless to impose sanctions on Russia. On another show, he said that Russian forces were “too gentle” during the opening days of the invasion and that Zelensky was a “puppet.” He blasted all information coming from Ukraine as propaganda.
During one Fox appearance, Macgregor said the United States should not demonize Putin, provide no aid to Ukraine, and let the Russian leader take whatever part of Ukraine he desired.
In his podcast episodes, Davis often seconded Macgregor’s remarks and presented him as a fellow whose extreme views should be heeded by the president and US policymakers.
Another regular guest for Davis has been Larry Johnson, who was a CIA analyst for several years in the 1980s. As the Voice of America reported recently, “The Kremlin uses Johnson’s often false and misleading claims to promote pro-Russian narratives and improve its image.”
Johnson is a longtime critic of US intelligence and an advocate for Russia—and a promoter of conspiracy theories. After the 2016 election, he repeatedly appeared on Russian state media to refute the US intelligence finding that Russia had covertly interfered in that contest to help Trump. (He claimed the CIA might have engineered the hacking of Democratic sources—a crime widely attributed to Russian operatives.) He also pushed the bogus claim that British intelligence services had spied on Trump. As a blogger in 2008, he spread the rumor that Michelle Obama had been recorded uttering a slur about white people.
More recently, in 2023, he contended that US intelligence was scheming to assassinate Zelenskyy and make it look as if he had been killed in a Russian airstrike. Citing his claim, RIA Novosti, the Russian- state-owned news agency, declared that “U.S. intelligence agencies are planning to assassinate Zelenskyy.” Last September, Voice of America reported that leading Russian state media outfits had cited or referred to Johnson more than 1000 times in the previous twelve months, as he often predicted Ukraine was about to suffer a major setback or even lose the war.
On Wednesday, Davis featured Johnson on his show once again, and Johnson reported that he had just attended a small meeting in Moscow with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Davis nodded approvingly, as Johnson voiced Russian talking points, praised Lavrov, and said it was “quite an honor” to speak with the Russian. (On his website, Johnson hailed Lavrov, a longtime Putin henchman, as “a gentleman and the walking definition of a master diplomat.”) Johnson blamed the West for the Russia-Ukraine war and the United States for tensions with Russia. He said of Putin, “As a lawyer, he is a stickler for the law.” Davis did not challenge this observation.
While in Moscow, Johnson and right-wing commentator Andrew Napolitano, also met with Russia oligarch Konstantin Malofeev, a Russian media mogul and Putin supporter who was sanctioned by the United States in 2014 for supporting Russian forces in eastern Ukraine and who was indicted by the US in 2022 for allegedly conspiring to violate US sanctions. Talking to Davis about his trip, Johnson recounted that he saw few cops and cited this to suggest that Russia was not a police state. He praised Moscow’s clean streets.
During this podcast, Johnson insisted that Americans should knock off criticizing Russia for corruption. He said he expected the “news” to break “in the next month or two” that members of Congress “took money from Ukrainians, $50 billion worth that wound up in banks in the Caribbean. Fifty billion.” Davis replied, “Yeah.” Johnson dumped on Zelenskyy, saying, “he is not a legitimate negotiating partner.” He called on Ukraine to stop fighting and withdraw its soldiers. He did not say the same about Russia. Davis pointed out that Trump had been right to halt US military aid to Ukraine—which has since been resumed—and remarked, “Trump agreeing to the Russian side isn’t a capitulation. It isn’t a surrender. It is an acknowledgement of reality… There is no other alternative.”
Davis did not respond to a request for comment, nor did Gabbard’s office. Macgregor and Johnson also did not reply to requests for comment.
Davis’ appointment was sabotaged in part because he has defied the pro-Israel hardline deeply ingrained within the Trump administration. (The Anti-Defamation League called him “extremely dangerous” and “unfit for this key security role.”) But his selection should have been problematic for another reason: This conservative non-interventionist has made common cause with and amplified pro-Russia commentators of dubious credibility, and that has rendered him useful for Putin’s state-run media. What’s most troubling is that Gabbard saw him as qualified and suitable for this position. A supposed military expert who relies on and boosts pro-Putin proponents and a conspiracy theorist ought not be in charge of the daily intelligence report the president receives. Gabbard’s initial decision to hire him shows that she, not Davis, is the real problem.
UPDATE: Before this story was published, David Corn sent an email to Johnson with a set of questions, including the following queries: How would you respond to the characterization that you are pro-Putin or pro-Russia? You said on a recent episode of Davis’ podcast that members of Congress have received $50 billion from people in Ukrainian that has wound up in Caribbean bank accounts. What is your source for that? Last year, Voice of America noted you are often cited by Russian state-owned media. Do you believe you are promoting pro-Russian talking points and narratives? You claimed that US intelligence was scheming to assassinate Zelenskyy. Do you still stand behind that statement? How do you respond to the characterization that you have promoted conspiracy theories?
Johnson did not respond. After the article was posted, he replied with an email: “You are one of the people who pushed the bullshit about Russiagate. Pretty rich that you want to now push the lie that I’m some sort of Russian tool. I’m an objective analyst. As far as conspiracy theories go I have no idea what you are referring to. What conspiracies do you have in mind? You are the conspiracy theorist.”
Warning: This post contains spoilers for Episode 9 of Severance Season 2.
After a few episodes that took us away from the action of the severed floor, the penultimate installment of Severance‘s second season centered on the fallout from outie Mark (Adam Scott) not showing up to work on the day Lumon’s bigwigs expected his innie to finally complete the mysterious Cold Harbor file.
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It was a tough shift for the innies who did clock in, with Dylan (Zach Cherry) attempting to resign after his outie’s wife broke up with him, and Helly (Britt Lower) receiving a mysterious visit from her outie’s menacing father, Lumon CEO Jame Eagan (Michael Siberry). Meanwhile, outie Burt (Christopher Walken) was escorting Irving (John Turturro) out of town—apparently in an attempt to keep him out of danger—while Ms. Cobel (Patricia Arquette) was racing back to Kier to either help Mark try to rescue Gemma (Dichen Lachman) or use him as a means to her own ends—jury’s still out on that one.
The episode, notably titled “The After Hours” (which we’ll get into more a little further down), largely served to set up the forthcoming Season 2 finale. We didn’t learn too much new information and a lot of the questions looming over the season were left unanswered. Here are 10 of our biggest ones.
What’s up with all the references to The Twilight Zone?
As some fans noted leading up to Episode 9, “The After Hours” is also the name of a famous 1960 installment of the classic sci-fi horror anthology series The Twilight Zone. In the episode, a woman named Marsha White goes to a department store looking for a gift for her mother and is directed to an empty elevator by an operator who takes her to the seemingly nonexistent ninth floor. There, a saleswoman who knows her name leads her to the only item on the floor, a gold thimble, which just so happens to be exactly what she’s looking for. As she takes the elevator back down, she realizes the thimble is scratched and dented, and she decides to try to return it. Later, Marsha finds herself trapped inside the store and slowly comes to a horrible realization: not only were the saleswoman and elevator operator mannequins come to life, but she herself is also a mannequin who was taking her turn living among humans in the outside world for a month. Marsha enjoyed her stay so much she forgot her true identity and returned a day late.
Ms. Cobel makes direct reference to the episode during her exchange with the birthing center security guard, quoting Twilight Zone host Rod Sterling’s opening narration of, “Miss Marsha White on the ninth floor, specialties department, looking for a gold thimble,” as a secret code of sorts that allows her to gain access to one of the severed birthing cottages without further question. Ms. Cobel referring to Devon (Jen Tullock) as “one of Jame’s” during this scene also begs the question of just how often a woman pregnant with Jame’s child is brought to this facility—a tidbit that could either be just a creepy aside about the reigning Eagan patriarch or a clue about some chilling, yet-to-be-revealed twist.
But, getting back to The Twilight Zone, we fear the episode title may also hint at the finale fate of either Gemma, who’s already trapped on Lumon’s testing floor, or Helly, who is determined to find out what exactly the dark hallway with the elevator leads to.
What does Jame want with Helly?
Speaking of Helly—the only MDR employee left on the severed floor who’s still trying to figure out what the hell is going on—the final minutes of the episode saw a skulking Jame show up to interrupt her attempts to memorize Irving’s directions to the Exports Hall. And unfortunately, he didn’t seem to be stopping by just to say hello.
“You tricked me,” he told her. “My Helly.”
Although Helly didn’t appear to know what was going on, Jame might be referring to the exchange they shared in the bathroom before Helly (who everyone thought was Helena) got on stage to give her speech during the Overtime Contingency in the Season 1 finale. That moment was the one time we’ve ever seen Jame say anything nice to and express genuine affection for his daughter—except it was actually Helly.
If we were betting people, we’d wager Jame isn’t so fond of an innie, whom the Eagans seem to regard as little more than livestock, getting one over on him. Might be time to make a break for it, Helly.
Is Helly going to be the one to find Gemma?
It seems likely that Helly and Gemma, the two loves of Mark’s two separate lives, are destined to have a run-in at some point. And with Helly trying her best to find her way to the Exports Hall elevator just as Mark could be on the verge of discovering where Gemma is being held, Helly may be the best chance he has of staging a quick rescue.
Is Dylan going to get back on the MDR loyalty train?
From taking one for the team in Season 1 by volunteering to be the one to activate the OTC so his friends could experience the outside world to convincing Irv that his life as an innie was worthwhile in the Season 2 premiere, Dylan has typically rode hard for MDR. But as Season 2 wore on, Lumon managed to distract him by offering him a shot at something his innie had never experienced: romantic love, with his outie’s wife nonetheless.
So when Gretchen (Merritt Wever) dumped him in Episode 9, it made sense that Dylan was distraught enough to fill out an innie resignation request form. Still, we have to believe Dylan will have a role to play in whatever’s going to happen to his fellow macrodata refiners going forward. And who knows, his outie might be feeling resentful enough over the whole “cheating” thing to not even accept his resignation, which means Dylan might be back sooner rather than later.
Is Irving really gone for good?
What we just said about Dylan still having a part to play in the overall Severance endgame also goes for Irving, who appeared to leave town at the end of Episode 9. Although he seems to have grudgingly accepted that he and Burt could never have a relationship, there’s just no way Irv is truly out of the picture now, right? Right!?
Is Mr. Milchick on the verge of a crash out?
Current head of the severed floor Mr. Milchick (Tramell Tillman) has spent Season 2 enduring what appears to be racially-motivated abuse at the hands of his Lumon superiors. But, in Episode 9, we finally saw him stand up to security chief Mr. Drummond (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson). In his own way, Milchick also seems to instinctively have some empathy for the innies (when he’s not being pushed to prove himself to Lumon by disciplining them). If he were to actually rebel against Lumon and ally with MDR, who knows what they could accomplish.
Is that the last we’ll see of Ms. Huang?
Having completed her Wintertide Fellowship—the same program that we now know Ms. Cobel was brought up in as a child—Ms. Huang (Sarah Bock) was presented with a bust of Jame Eagan’s head and sent on her way at the end of Episode 9. Perhaps she was there all along just to give us a glimpse into what young Ms. Cobel went through. But we’re still wondering if she may have a bigger role to play in what’s to come.
Is something weird going on with Devon?
There’s a good amount of speculation out there about whether Devon’s behavior this season—using an Android instead of an iPhone, for example, or calling Ms. Cobel after finding out Mark was reintegrating—is a sign that Devon is in cahoots with Lumon for some reason. We really want to believe Devon is just naive and scared for her brother, not evil. But if you’re intent on finding reasons to think something fishy is afoot, you probably can.
There’s also the matter of Ricken (Michael Chernus), his new book, and his overall involvement with Lumon. All we’ll say is, fall down the rabbit hole of Ricken-is-a-former-Lumon-goat-theories at your own risk.
Does Ms. Cobel actually want to help Mark?
Although it does seems like Ms. Cobel, who we now know is the inventor of the severance procedure, has turned her back on Lumon for the time being, it’s hard to believe she doesn’t have her own ulterior motives for helping Mark try to track down Gemma before his innie can complete Cold Harbor. Is Harmony really willing to sacrifice her life’s work to save Gemma? We’re kind of scared to find out.
What is Cold Harbor?
It’s the mystery at the heart of the show. The current end-all-be-all of lingering questions. What exactly is Cold Harbor—and what will it help Lumon accomplish? We learned this episode that, according to Ms. Cobel, Mark finishing Cold Harbor will in fact result in Gemma’s death. But the file has been stuck at 96 percent ever since Mark started reintegrating. Whatever it is, the entirety of the series so far seems to have been building toward this reveal. Time to prepare for the worst and hope for the best, Severance fans.
