. >>> 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

antigay propaganda laws said that russian orphans needed to be saved from perverted family like masha gessens is. >> my partner and i have three children together and we didn't think we could risk any of them. so we left for united states. and i think you know, i'm an opposition journalist and i've been an opposition journalist for years. what has happened to me as an openly gay person in the last couple of years with the number of death threats and the number of direct threats to my family, doesn't even compare to the kinds of things i used to hear as a journalist. >> russia is one of the most dangerous places for journalists these days. i can imagine what it is for gay journalists. >>> what did you see? how bad is the situation? >> well, you know, there in big cities like lost cow and st. petersburg of course you have young people open minded. but you know, i mean, you can look at it from several levels. like generally the ignorance i met on the street just doing question-and-answers with me and especially young people would almost answer aggressively when you ask them about homosexuality.

. >> journalist masha gessen and "gq" contributor jeff sharlet. that's "all in." "the rachel maddow show" begins now. >>> that was fascinating stuff. thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. the new jersey party circulated this reprint from the newark "star-ledger" from 1996. see in the upper left hand corner there there's a christmas sale at the silk floral outlet. down in the lower left hand corner, that's sort of a checking account ad. up top, a feature of a wood carver, an angel's head carved out of wood. nice. on the right hand side, that quarter-page ad is a public letter of apology from a new jersey county republican officeholder at the time named chris christie. it's titled "a statement by morris county freeholder" that's like county commissioner of new jersey, "morris county freeholder chris christie." the following is a letter of apology and retraction that i sent to cecilia laureys and ed tamm. i'm writing to express my sincere apology to both of you regarding political ads which ran during the primary election campaign in 19 the 4. both of you,