Photo Illustration by Erin O’Flynn/The Daily Beast/Getty
Concerns are swirling within the Kremlin and splashing onto the screens of Russia’s tightly controlled state media. Moscow’s grueling invasion of Ukraine and Washington’s potential designation of Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism are at the top of the list—but the upcoming U.S. elections are likewise causing some heart palpitations.
Having gotten over their initial shock over the FBI’s search of Donald Trump’s Florida estate, Russian experts and pundits started to dismiss it as much ado about nothing, albeit a convenient tale they could use to smear American democracy. Now they’re singing a different tune. Inhe most recent broadcast of the state TV show Sunday Evening With Vladimir Solovyov, host Vladimir Solovyov remarked: “I’m very worried for our agent Trump. They found everything at Mar-a-Lago, they got packages of documents. In all seriousness, they say he should be executed as a person that was ready to hand off nuclear secrets to Russia.”
Appearing on Solovyov’s show, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova likewise raged against the alleged persecution of Moscow’s favorite former U.S. president. In a bizarre tirade, she attempted to tie the search of Mar-a-Lago with Trump’s earlier statement that there are only two genders, male and female. “In the West, you’re not allowed to call a man a man. You can’t call a woman a woman. You’re not allowed to call a child male or female, until it reaches the age of 2-3 years old,” she fumed. “In the run-up to the upcoming electoral battles, one of the contenders for a political role—the most important political role in the United States—Donald Trump steps up and says, ‘We’ve gone too far. There are only two genders: male and female.’”