28 THENEWYORKER,DECEMBER16, 2019
the game the way everyone else does.
In recent years, the space for free-
wheeling and irreverent programming
on Channel One has shrunk, and the in-
tensity of propaganda has grown. But
Ernst has stuck around. The unique
power of television remains seductive. “I
can make an impact on the place where
I was born, on the people with whom I
share a language, a history, and an un-
derstanding, share the same smells and
songs and movie quotes,” he told me. “I
know these people and can understand
them. I love them.”
I
n September, 2014, six months after
the annexation of Crimea, a new pro-
gram appeared on Channel One called
“Time Will Tell,” a crass debate show
covering the issues of the day, which usu-
ally revolve around how the West is keep-
ing Russia down. When, in August, 2016,
a producer called me to ask if I would
appear as a guest—it’s hard to find Rus-
sian-speaking Americans in Moscow
willing to get yelled at for an hour on
live television—I agreed, curious about
what it feels like on the factory floor of
the state’s propaganda enterprise.
On the day I was set to appear, a
minder met me at the entrance to the
studio and led me through a vast war-
ren of hallways. I sat in a makeup chair
and endured a heavy dusting of powder.
The audience numbered about a hun-
dred people, who were given the signal
to clap when the show returned from
commercial break, or when one of the
pro-Kremlin guests made a particularly
acerbic point at the expense of one of
the show’s villains—in this case, me. We
discussed the Russian Olympic athletes
facing bans for doping allegations and
the conflict in Syria, where both Mos-
cow and Washington had forces deployed.
All of the questions were leading ones.
The United States carries itself with an
air of impunity, one of the show’s hosts
told me—“Isn’t that disastrous?” Another
posited, “Obama referred to Russia as a
‘regional power.’ Can’t we say that’s when
all our problems between the two coun-
tries began?”
I returned to “Time Will Tell” every
now and then over the next few months,
on each occasion certain that this would
be the day I would manage to say some-
thing subversive and devastatingly con-
vincing on Russian state television. Of
course, that never happened: not only
was I outnumbered by half a dozen other
guests but I could interject only a few
words at most, and had to huff and puff
and raise my voice. In the end, I came
across as just another agitated talking
head. Even my most forceful protests
made issues of fact seem muddy and un-
knowable, proving that everything is a
question of perspective and allegiance.
The program offers viewers a crude car-
nival sideshow: one of its co-hosts is
famous for having once brought out
a bucket labelled “Shit” and daring a
Ukrainian guest to eat from it. (It turned
out to be chocolate.) I had a hard time
imagining Ernst, the discerning auteur,
being pleased with such antics; they seem
to embody the ways that his channel has
changed to accommodate the mood of
the new era. In its loyalty to the official
narrative, however, the show is in keep-
ing with the model he has built.
“Time Will Tell,” like much of the
Russian news, is obsessed by the United
States, a consequence of the Russian rul-
ing class’s simultaneous fascination with
and revulsion for the American political
system. This became all the more true
in the run-up to the 2016 U.S. election.
Ernst told me, “Of course everyone here
was pleased with Donald Trump. He
seemed to represent a change in the
American political trend.” Trump openly
favored a transactional style of politics,
with little appetite for values or norms.
Here was a person with whom Putin
could sit down and divide up the world,
as Soviet and American leaders had done
at Yalta, in 1945.
After Trump’s surprise victory, “Time
Will Tell” reflected the Russian state
media’s initial euphoria; then its hostile
mockery of the notion that Russia,
through hacking or trolls, might have
had anything to do with that result; and,
finally, a creeping sense of confusion
and disappointment as Trump proved
unable to single-handedly cancel sanc-
tions and reconfigure U.S.-Russian re-
lations. During one broadcast on which
I appeared, when we were discussing an
address that Trump had made to the
United Nations—Channel One’s news
program had called it “lengthy and rather
pompous”—I asked the hosts if they
felt any regret that the Russian media
had favored Trump.
One of them, Anatoly Kuzichev, who
had a bald head and a permanent smirk,
turned the question back to me: “Imag-
ine there are two candidates. The first
says, ‘I hate Russia and will do all I can
to destroy it.’ The second, however, says,
‘I will do everything possible to be friends
with Russia.’ So, who would you root for
in Russia’s place?” I pushed again. Did
Kuzichev have any regrets? “Yes, we are
sorry,” he said, his voice rising. “We’re
sorry that everything was just words. Yes,
we were rooting for Trump. I can confirm
that. We acted like fools who naïvely be-
lieved a bunch of words.”
Channel One has embraced the line
that Trump is being undermined by po-
litical élites and the so-called “deep state,”
a position that allows its presenters to
explain his inability to improve relations
with Russia, while also revelling in how
the American government has devolved
into a self-injurious political circus. This
narrative has only gained strength since
the beginning of the recent impeachment
hearings in Congress. “Let them fight
amongst themselves,” a host on “Time
Will Tell” said on a recent episode. A
Channel One anchorman declared, “With
impeachment, Congress has guaranteed
that the 2020 Presidential election will
be the most beastly in American history.”
The hosts on “Time Will Tell” seem
as confused as Trump is about why there
would be anything wrong with linking
military aid money for Ukraine to po-
litical favors. Isn’t that how American
foreign policy has always operated?
Watching the show, I was reminded of
my conversations with Ernst, in which
he seemed eager to show that he is alive
to how the world really works, unlike
those idealists—perhaps me included—
who remain blinded by naïveté. It is a
world view grounded in some truth, but
it has the effect of excusing all manner
of behavior as simply routine. On a re-
cent episode, from mid-November, when
a steady stream of witnesses were testi-
fying in Congress, one of the hosts
turned to an American journalist and
mocked the idea that the Democrats
had uncovered anything incriminating.
“Where is the evidence? Why don’t they
produce it?” the host asked. The Amer-
ican guest responded, “You just don’t
show it on this channel, like they don’t
show it on Fox News.” The host smiled,
and pretended to act afraid: “Quick, cut
to commercial break!”
