Brazil's Bolsonaro surprise opens Pod Save the World, Evan Gershkovich closes it
Tommy Vietor and Ben Rhodes cover Brazil, Spain, France, Quebec, a German spy case, Russia and Iran in one episode, and Ben ends it with the Wall Street Journal reporter.
Pod Save the World
Story of Why this story? The video opened at a pace of 84,983 views a day, 18 times a normal first day on this channel (4,600).
Trump-Aligned Far Right Surges in SHOCK Brazil Election
Pod Save the World as a whole is running quieter than usual, and so are most of the political talk channels close to its size. Its newest full episode is the exception. "Trump-Aligned Far Right Surges in SHOCK Brazil Election" passed 67,000 views within 15 hours, where a new episode here usually finishes its first day below 5,000. A week ago an episode built around Trump's ambassadors started in much the same way, as we reported here.
Brazil comes first. Tommy Vietor and Ben Rhodes go through the first-round results, in which Flavio Bolsonaro, a senator and the eldest son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, did better than expected. The description calls him the favorite for the October 25 runoff.
The rest of the hour moves fast. Pedro Sánchez calls a snap election in Spain over housing after an eviction set off demonstrations. Student protests reach more than 40 French cities. Quebec separatists win their provincial election. In Germany, a former intelligence chief is arrested on suspicion of passing state secrets, a case the description says involves a steakhouse heiress, a custody dispute and a kidnapping in Denmark. The hosts also cover conflicting official accounts of a plague death in Russia, which got its own short clip on the channel the same day, and the war with Iran.
To finish, Ben talks with Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter, about his book on his imprisonment in Russia, This Cursed Beautiful Land: A Russian American Story.
The comments read like a map of the audience. Canadian viewers write long notes on how to read the Quebec result, a viewer in Germany adds background on the intelligence case, another explains how France splits power between its president and prime minister, and several people who say they usually skip the interviews single out this one.
Published on Trari
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- Channel
- Pod Save the World
- Subscribers
- 257,000
- Channel views, last 7 days
- 309,601
- Channel views, pace per day
- 16,653 (on a normal day: 29,140)
- Video published
- October 7, 2026
- Video views so far
- 67,674 (less than a day online)
- Video views, pace per day
- 84,983
The numbers
One episode ran far ahead of the usual on a day when the channel as a whole was quieter than normal.
💡 Test your knowledge
Brazil's president works in the country's capital. Which city is it?
Brasília was built as a planned city and replaced Rio de Janeiro as Brazil's capital in 1960.
