. >>> joining me now, journalist masha gessen, author of the books "words will break cement: the passiony riot" and "man without a face." and jeff sharlet, contributor to "gq" where he wrote a phenomenal piece about what it's like to be gay in russia right now. a 100% read. masha, you wrote a biography of vladimir putin which is an incredible read, great book. why did putin want these olympics so badly? what is it about what he is doing to russia as the russian leader that made getting this such an unbelievable priority for him? >> when he became president, he wanted -- one of his great ambitions was to become one of the guys, to show that russia was great again and he was one of the world's leaders. what a better way to prove it than to have all the guys come over for a big party to his favorite place which is sochi where he loves to downhill ski? but also russia had suffered a disgrace during the 1980 boycott of the soviet olympics. >> right. remember, that 1980 is when the u.s. boycotted the games. they were in russia and it was kind of half olympics because the u.s. wasn't there and