It could have been the ominous cold open to a classic Bond film. The Russian and Chinese leaders caught on a hot mic at a Beijing military parade, casually musing about cheating death. “With the development of biotechnology, human organs can be continuously transplanted and people can live younger and younger, and even achieve immortality,” Russian leader Vladimir Putin told Chinese ruler Xi Jinping, his tone half clinical, half conspiratorial. “Predictions are that this century, there is a chance of living to 150,” Xi replied. But this wasn’t a scriptwriter’s villainous fantasy. It was a jaw-droppingly real exchange between two of the world’s most powerful, heavily armed leaders. While it may have sounded absurd, behind palace walls, the obsession with longevity is more than idle chatter. The Russian and Chinese leaders were caught on a hot mic at a Beijing military parade, casually musing about cheating death. | Pool photo by Alexander Kazakov/AFP via Getty Images In 2024, the Kremlin ordered scientists to fast-track anti-aging research on cellular degeneration, cognitive decline and the immune system. Meanwhile, China has also been pouring resources into exploring nanotechnology-delivered hydrogen therapy and compounds such as betaine and lithocholic acid, hoping to slow down aging and extend healthy lifespans. But even as the world’s autocrats fantasize about replacing body parts like car tires, the science remains far less accommodating. James Markmann, executive council president at the American Society of Transplant Surgeons, called Xi and Putin’s idea of living to 150 through transplants “unfounded.” “There is currently no evidence suggesting that living to 150 years of age is possible through organ transplantation,” Markmann said. “While there is much interest in related research and some progress in intervening in the aging process, there is no evidence that a 150-year lifespan can currently be achieved.” While organ transplantation can and does save lives, there’s no data that it can also slow or reset an individual’s biological clock, Markmann said. Replacing a single organ, or even several, may improve health temporarily, but it cannot halt the overall aging process of the body. “The concerning idea here is that there is a surplus of organs available that can consistently be replenished for a single individual to prolong their life; this is simply not the case,” Markmann said. THE OLDEST OBSESSION The Xi-Putin exchange didn’t happen in a vacuum. History is littered with rulers who believed they could outsmart death. Qin Shi Huang, China’s first emperor, swallowed mercury pills in pursuit of eternal life, a habit that eventually killed him. Egyptian pharaohs mummified themselves for eternity, Cleopatra dabbled in youth potions and medieval alchemists peddled elixirs. By the 20th century, Russia’s last czar, Nicholas II, and Empress Alexandra were consulting Rasputin and other mystics for advice on health and longevity. Today, the same quest has migrated to Silicon Valley, where the mega-rich pour fortunes into cryonics, anti-aging biotech and “biohacking” in the hope of buying more time. According to Elizabeth Wishnick, an expert on Sino-Russian relations and senior research scientist at the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA), a non-partisan research and analysis organization, this fixation is typical of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful. “They want to go into outer space, they want to go underwater … the human body for them is just another frontier,” she told POLITICO. “It’s logical for people who don’t feel limits to try to extend those boundaries.” But there’s a stark contrast close to home. Life expectancy in Russia remains just over 73 years, while in China, it hovers around 79 years, with access to healthcare being deeply unequal. In Wishnick’s view, Xi and Putin “would do better to focus on that, but instead their focus seems to be on their own longevity, not the health of their societies.” UNFINISHED BUSINESS There’s also a significant cultural dimension agitating Xi and Putin. Robert Jay Lifton, the American scholar who coined the term “symbolic immortality,” argued that humans invent religions, nations and political legacies as ways of cheating death. Xi’s mantra of “national rejuvenation” and Putin’s mission to restore a “great Russia” fit neatly into that framework — even if they can’t physically live forever. “Both of them are really hostage to their own propaganda,” said Wishnick. “They truly believe they are the only leaders who can do the job. They’re concerned about their legacy and how they’ll be remembered in history.” That, she said, helps explain their obsession with reclaiming “lost” territories — Taiwan for Beijing; Ukraine for Moscow — as if completing unfinished maps might also complete their historical destinies. Qin Shi Huang’s attempt at immortality, the Terracotta Army, still stands today. | Forrest Anderson/Getty Images They’ve made creeping moves toward that goal domestically. Xi has upended China’s tradition of leadership turnover to maintain his dominance, while Putin has dismantled elections and eliminated rivals until only he remains. “It’s not surprising they would look to science as a way of extending that,” Wishnick added. While the scientific limitations persist, immortality will — at least for the time being — remain tied to public consciousness and memory. See, for example, Qin Shi Huang’s Terracotta Army, which still stands, or Russia’s expansionist czar, Peter the Great, an 18th-century leader who inspires Putin even today. But even in a world of nanotech and organ swaps, immortality has a catch: you still have to live with yourself. And for the world’s Bond villains, that might be the cruelest sentence of all.

DAHLONEGA, Georgia — Fiona Bagley was born in Epsom, a historic spa town in a leafy corner of England. She owns an English goods store, a quaint tea room, two deadly crossbows and an AK-47 assault rifle. On Nov. 5, she will vote for Donald Trump. “I don’t particularly like Donald Trump,” the 64-year-old said, chatting over a cup of Earl Grey tea on the veranda of her café in the former gold-mining town of Dahlonega, Georgia. “I wish he would be a bit more presidential. But I like what he does.” Speaking in an accent from southern England (with an occasional American lilt), she described the Republican presidential candidate as “obnoxious,” “loud” and “brash,” and said he “doesn’t know when to shut up.”  “But the man knows how to run a country,” she added. Bagley is one of numerous British-born dual citizens in Georgia — a crucial swing state in the looming presidential election — who will back Trump over his Democrat rival Kamala Harris. The friends and families of these Brits back home — where Trump remains deeply unpopular — can scarcely believe they could support the controversial businessman.  But British Trump voters in Georgia canvassed by POLITICO said their experiences living in America under Democrat rule had made up their minds.  Trump-backing Brits typically cite the economic woes they experienced under the Joe Biden administration, including rampant consumer and business inflation, as reasons to cast their ballots for the Republican. Abortion, foreign affairs and the gender debate come up in conversation too — not to mention Trump’s perceived mistreatment at the hands of the media and the so-called Washington elite.  But certain U.K. political influences seem as difficult to shed as the enduring British accent. “I’ve got some socialist in me, particularly when it comes to healthcare and education,” said Mark, 69, a Trump voter from Hove on the south coast of England. (He asked that his surname not be published.)  Mark was not alone in expressing love for Britain’s treasured National Health Service, which provides free healthcare to U.K. citizens. By contrast, American-born Republicans like to paint the U.K.’s state-run health regime as a failed socialist experiment. Most Brits in the U.S. are squeamish about America’s love of guns, too — though not Bagley, who has embraced the culture. “I have an arsenal,” she said proudly, listing an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle, several handguns and a shotgun among her haul at home, alongside the AK-47 and two crossbows mentioned above. “I’m probably very different to a lot of the Brits, who think the gun culture is out of control.” TEA AND TRUMP Crucially, Bagley was exposed to guns long before she lived in America. She served in the British armed forces, patrolling the Berlin Wall, where she met her American future husband. The pair moved to the U.S. 32 years ago, after she retired from the service.  Settling in Dahlonega, north of Atlanta, Bagley opened a bed and breakfast and tea rooms, a flower farm, and Crown and Bear, a British food and gifts shop on the town square. Her collective businesses employ 18 people.  The friends and families of British-born dual citizens back home — where Donald Trump remains deeply unpopular — can scarcely believe they could support the controversial businessman. | Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images The tea room is named after Waffles, her corgi dog, who attends Independence Day parades dressed as an English king. Bagley dresses as a British red coat soldier from the American Revolutionary War and throws tea bags at the crowd.  The shop, upstairs in an old townhouse, sells endless British-themed items including Sherlock Holmes candles, London Underground t-shirts and assorted royal family memorabilia. No one in the town knew what a crumpet was before Bagley opened the shop in 2020; now she has dozens of customers on speed dial for when a new pallet of tea-room delicacies arrives.  Bagley has been on her own journey of discovery in recent years. She says she would never have voted for Trump had he been a candidate when she first arrived three decades ago. “I would have thought, ‘wow, that man’s kind of rude,’” she said.  As recently as 2016 she berated a neighbor for backing Trump, branding the Republican a “fool.” But by the end of that election cycle she was backing Trump too: Now it’s her British friends and family back home who berate her for her political affiliations. “They are utterly shocked that I would vote for that man,” she said. “And I’m kinda shocked too.”  But she said she feels she has little choice, due to fears her businesses might not survive if the Democrats win again. “When he was in power, I had more money in my bank account,” Bagley explained. “Things weren’t as tight. In the last four years it’s been brutal for retail businesses.” TRUMP AS THE NEW THATCHER Other British Trump supporters argue their favored candidate should not be so unpalatable to folks back home. “There was nobody more brash and more forthright than Margaret Thatcher,” said Manchester-born Mike Long, 68, referring to the former U.K. prime minister who won three general elections despite being a hugely divisive figure. “The British loved her.” Long was speaking in the back office of Taste of Britain, another British shop that has been a fixture in Norcross, a suburb of Atlanta, for three-and-a-half decades. The store has an enormous range of British food products, including niche items like Smith’s Scampi Fries crisps, Soreen malt loaf, Bird’s custard powder and a full menu of Scottish pies.  Roxanna Aguilar, who has run the store for 12 years, was born in south London and grew up in Colchester, Essex. She has watched fellow Brits who move to Georgia slowly become more polarized — just like their American neighbors — the longer they spend in the U.S. Many now watch Fox News or other hardline conservative media, she said, and rail vocally against the more left-wing bias of other broadcasters. “In Britain, your political view is very personal. It’s not here,” Aguilar said in her Union Jack-themed office, where the rug, tissue box and baroque armchair are all splashed with the British flag. “But I think the English people that live over here have gotten used to that.” Some British Trump supporters argue their favored candidate should not be so unpalatable to folks back home. | Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images Certainly, the British-American voters POLITICO spoke to were open and generous in sharing their views — even the more controversial ones. One woman — who asked not to be named — repeated false claims that the 2020 election had been rigged against Trump, and accused the Inland Revenue Service, the CIA and other government institutions of colluding against him. The same person said of Harris: “If I see that laugh one more time, and that nodding head, I’ll put a baseball bat through the TV.” RARE SPECIES Not all British-born voters in the U.S. reject the Democrat candidate, of course. In fact, numerous people said Trump-voting Brits are few and far between.  Sonya Foley, 50, a cybersecurity contractor from Reading, a large town west of London, has been in the U.S. for 22 years. She voted for Harris under the early voting scheme in Georgia. “A woman’s right to choose what happens to her own body is critical for me,” she said of the abortion debate. “It affects us all.” She also said she feared a second Trump presidency would be characterized by “retaliation” against his opponents, and that the former president had tapped into latent racism, misogyny and classism in the U.S.  As for claims by Trump supporters that the Republican candidate would be the stronger leader, Foley replied: “I just don’t think being a bullying narcissist is showing leadership.” A week from polling day, these same arguments are playing out in households across a divided nation.