Alexei Navalny’s interview on the Hard Day's Night program on TV Rain. Part 3

This is the program *Hard Day’s Night*. Alexei

Navalny is our studio guest today.

Galina, please. And—

I wanted to ask you about those who were left

out in the cold. I get the impression

that the ones left out were not the right-wing

people, not conservative-minded

citizens, but those people who some time

ago stood beside you shoulder

to shoulder. For example, the Left Front,

for example, Udaltsov.

So what do you mean by that?

They weren’t there, they weren’t there, they weren’t visible

in the election campaign at all. They

made no impact. They made no impact at all in the— You

just maybe weren’t following it as closely

as I was. No. The Left Front

officially supported

Melnikov and called on everyone to vote for

Melnikov. And as I understand it, that

was the official position of the Left Front.

They supported Melnikov. That was

quite logical. Knowing, broadly speaking,

their mood, I didn’t even waste time

trying to secure their support. It’s

an organization that, with all due respect,

has wonderful people working in it, but

I wouldn’t say they have

a large number of voters behind them. It’s

just a small number of activists.

Udaltsov stated his political

position, and that was his right.

Well, look, I understand that my

question may sound cynical. That

word has already come up here, or—or

pragmatic, or maybe a healthy

cynicism, but still, just a few

months ago, half a year ago, maybe

more, there was

a certain idea that the opposition had

several leaders, among whom the most, most

prominent were Alexei Navalny,

Sergei Udaltsov. Sergei Udaltsov

is under house arrest. And

over the past few months that he has been

under it, he’s been absent. He’s simply disappeared

completely. This is very convenient

for Alexei Navalny, isn’t it?

I think neither you nor anyone else

would have any doubt that, for example, Udaltsov and I

could not be in the same

party. So, I have a certain

set of political views

that overlap with his.

Political prisoners, political reforms,

fair elections, the abolition of censorship, the fight against

corruption. But if we take his substantive

views on the economy, they

do not coincide at all. Udaltsov

is, well, very, very, very left-wing. He

is much further left than the Communists.

That is why he chooses his own independent

political strategy. We are not—we are not

aligned with them on some issues,

naturally. When we held those

rallies on Bolotnaya (Bolotnaya Square in Moscow, a key protest site), we all stood there and

we were all political allies,

despite the fact that a significant part

of our views differ. But I was

not at all surprised, and certainly not

offended, for example, when he supported

Melnikov. I understood that Udaltsov is

a communist. Strictly speaking, he

doesn’t really find a place for himself in the CPRF (Communist Party of the Russian Federation), because

he is much further left than the CPRF. That was

normal. Here everyone chooses their own

strategy, and each person chooses their own methods

of work.

Yes, but that contradicts the point

you yourself made 15 minutes ago about

how you are calling on

inviting the entire opposition into

that. Well, look, if we define

as our tactical political

goal depriving United Russia

of its majority in representative bodies of power, then

of course we must and will

cooperate with the Communists,

for example, by dividing up single-member districts.

In this mayoral campaign, it seemed to me

that Ivan Melnikov and I had

a perfectly good understanding, and there were

no incidents at all. That is completely

normal. But to expect that all of us together

will unite and merge into some kind of

party—well, that is simply impossible, and

pointless. Please, Lint.

Oh, back to unpleasant things again. This is exactly where

Tatyana’s question didn’t quite get voiced, but I

will try to put it into words. Look, Masha

accused you of cynicism, pragmatism, or

was it Sveta, I don’t remember who. Not—

of pragmatism. You know, from what I

observed during the mayoral

campaign, I got the impression that

it’s not so much that people are directly very afraid

of you; people are afraid of the hysteria that

is building up around your name. When

I

And where is it building up?

I’ll tell you in a moment—when I, when I

did a small survey among acquaintances and

it turned out that, well, I simply had

one person asking, what is this

Navalny, what is this Navalny all about? So I

did a survey. It turned out that half

the women want to have children because

they see what men can be like, right? And half

the men see a role model. And on that basis

there begins to form a small

leader cult. Yes, Navalny is our

president. Yes, Navalny is our mayor. Yes,

Navalny is our everything. Really, at the end of the day,

when is the “sarcasm” sign going to appear?

Well, it seems to me, to me, that I have that

sarcasm sign constantly in

my hands. But you have to understand, that’s the logic

of an election campaign.

If you look

at outdoor advertising, at everything under the sun, if

you take any election—not just ours,

any election campaign—take one in

the U.S., take Obama, take Kerry,

take, I don’t know, Romney. There are always

placards, always portraits. This is

a normal part of an election campaign.

Naturally, a significant portion

of supporters who are actively involved in

it react negatively to other

candidates. In every discussion, they are constantly

arguing that our candidate

is the best. That’s normal. When

I was in the Yabloko party (a Russian liberal political party), I did exactly the same thing

—went around foaming at the mouth, insisting that my

candidate, my party, was the best.

That’s what

is over.

The campaign is over. Well, the campaign

for the Moscow City Duma and for the Moscow mayoral election is over.

There will be another campaign. We

understand that right now we are effectively

waging a kind of permanent political

campaign, because elections,

that is, Navalny’s presence, will

keep growing and will eventually reach

Putin’s level of presence in the information

space. Right. But the information space,

my friends, forgive me, is shaped by you

—your information space. I have nothing to do with your

information space, and

in no way—well, I am in it now, and

none of us exists separately from it, yes,

you let me in here, but it is you who

create this information space, so

I have nothing to do with that. If you come to my campaign headquarters and

whether now or earlier,

you would have seen—and will see now—a wonderful

atmosphere where everyone

acts on absolutely equal terms. In

this election campaign, I worked, well,

exactly like an ordinary activist. I

went around holding meetings with voters.

I took part on completely equal footing with everyone else

in the briefing meetings. This is one of

the most important principles: we do everything

together. I am just one person, exactly the same as everyone else.

But the fact that there are photographs and

placards everywhere—this is an election campaign,

and election campaigns are supposed to have placards and

photographs. That will always be the case.

Yes, let’s move on. Please. Masha,

I want to ask not about Sergei

Udaltsov, who is at least at home,

even if under arrest—house arrest—but

about those who are in pretrial detention (SIZO).

Those involved in the Bolotnaya case (the prosecution of protesters after the 2012 Bolotnaya Square rally). Honestly,

when there was that rally on

Bolotnaya, it was actually a bit

surprising that at the end of the speech not a word

was said about the people who also stood in that

square. Do you feel any

responsibility for them, as the emperor of the opposition,

so to speak? Do you

think about that at all?

You’ve quietly appointed me emperor

of the opposition—and with a placard too,

—sarcasm. First of all, we had more than one

rally, not just the one on the sixth; before

that we had a rally on Sakharov

Prospekt, where I spoke.

Before the sixth, there was a rally on

Sakharov Prospekt. The issue of the Bolotnaya

prisoners has always been one of

the central issues of our campaign. I

held 90 meetings with voters. At

every meeting I talked about it. Well,

almost every one—at almost every meeting

I was asked about it.

This is extremely important, because it

defines the politics of this country.

This is exactly what Muscovites need to hear

about. Every time I was asked

about Serdyukov, I said:

"Yes, Serdyukov isn’t in jail. But sitting there is

a person accused of

throwing an object that looked like a lemon." We

always talked about this. We talked about it, and

I will keep talking about it constantly; it is

the clearest sign that this

government must be fought by many methods.

Precisely because these people are sitting

in prison for absolutely nothing. So

And what methods, in this case, are you prepared

to use, or to advise others

to use—legal, procedural,

media-related?

Methods that are effective, that remain

within the bounds of the law, and that correspond

to our realistic understanding of

reality. If you want something more specific, what

exactly do you mean? More specifically, we

take part in elections, we engage in

campaigning, we go out to

unauthorized, to

authorized rallies, and to

unauthorized rallies. Look,

Academician Yuryan went out to

an unauthorized rally as a matter of principle,

deliberately to an unauthorized protest.

There are probably moments when one must

take a principled stand and go out to

an unauthorized protest. And the people

who came out on July 18—back then, in June—they

helped me tremendously, because they

said on principle: "We will go.

Please, over all these, all these

summer months, as Galina already

said, we watched your truly

incredibly active election

campaign. Large sums of money were raised,

an entire

volunteer network was built, and so on, and so

on. And on Sunday, on the air of

Echo of Moscow with Alexei Venediktov, you said that

this network would, in one way or another, be

to use in order to

tell people about the Bolotnaya case.

Why wasn’t this done earlier?

People have already been in jail for a year, even longer in some cases.

Well, that’s a question for all of us. Why was this

done earlier? That is, that’s the

question.

Listen, from the point of view of

information campaigns around the Bolotnaya

case, I took part in all of them.

In all the information campaigns. The most

well-known of them was “One Day, One

Name.” It got fairly wide attention on

the internet. There were also statements about the Bolotnaya prisoners,

and all the demonstrations were connected in one way or another

to this issue. In other words, everything we did on

this subject, we did constantly in connection

with the problem and the situation surrounding the Bolotnaya

prisoners. This election campaign,

which you call so

striking and wonderful, its efficiency

was actually fairly low.

It’s just that we had never seen

election campaigns of the kind that

are genuinely built on volunteers.

We simply hadn’t seen them. We had seen nothing

like it. All election

campaigns are built on the fact that some

people say they’re running in the elections, and

then they go to Volodin or whoever else

and beg for television coverage. We

acted differently. Now we have

worked out certain methods. We now know

for sure that this

distribution of newspapers at campaign cubes (street campaign stands), it

is effective, it works. And going forward we

will use these methods. Those are some

methods. And maybe it would have been more effective to

stand there with a huge, weighty

picket outside the State Duma until

and remain there until the norms of the Criminal Code

were changed. Maybe

I’ll let you in on a secret: you would be carried away from there

in a police van. You can stage that

there is a large set of effective, as he

said, and diverse methods.

Now listen, listen. What you’re

saying is such a naive view

of a person who, it seems,

is not the editor-in-chief of a publication, but rather

someone who doesn’t even know what

was happening. People stood in indefinite

pickets many times, and they were dragged away from everywhere.

So if you say to me, “Well maybe

this is effective, or maybe something else is

effective,” I’m telling you that during

this election campaign we

tested certain methods. Some of

them, it seemed to us, were more

effective and were within our reach in terms of

money, number of volunteers, and so

on. I can call everyone together and

say, “Guys, let’s stand in an indefinite

picket.” That will lead to all of them

being arrested, and then they’ll say to me:

“Navalny, why did you make it so that

our children got arrested?”

Can we move on to something else now? Or can we

just one more small question about this. You, you

last summer at a meeting with the parents,

of those who are now in pretrial detention,

expressed the view that they would most likely receive

either suspended sentences or, or

very short ones. Do you still

think so?

The situation is changing. When the criminal cases there

against me were starting, everyone also

told me there would be suspended sentences. Yes,

we saw that the initial decision there was

a completely real prison term.

The backlash is coming. It has been building throughout

the past year. It has been constantly

hardening. When we held the first

meeting, when I held that first meeting with

the parents of those imprisoned in the Bolotnaya

case, first of all, there were completely

different numbers of them. The atmosphere around

this was different, and the situation

in the country was different. Back then it seemed that

this was really just a brief act

of intimidation meant to drive

people out of the squares. Now it has become clear,

all these laws were passed. It was

simply demonstrated in an absolutely

deliberate, cynical way: we don’t give a damn about

any of you. We will pass

the most absurd laws, and in general we

and after that everything happened that happened to

Magnitsky over the past few months

and so on. Of course, the situation is changing.

Please. Would you like to

comment on Mikhail

Prokhorov’s statement that if he had run in the

election, the balance of forces would have been different?

Well, he wasn’t exactly holding up a sign saying “sarcasm” at that moment,

was he?

No, I think that was more of an

emotional expression on his part.

It’s a normal situation when politicians

Well, what did you expect from Prokhorov,

for him to say, “What a great guy

Navalny is, and perhaps I’ll join him in

the people’s movement”? I expected

that’s not how politics works. This is a person

who has to—do you consider Prokhorov

a politician?

Well, you’ve caught me a little there. All right,

I’ll put it this way: Prokhorov is trying to be

a politician. He has to respond to the demands

coming from within his own party, because after

this election, I know very well that inside

Civic Platform there is enormous

discontent. In effect, they themselves

withdrew from the election in Yaroslavl. They simply

threw the election away and did nothing to defend

Urlashov. While sitting in Kirov during my trial,

I was organizing a rally online in defense of

Urlashov, while Civic Platform

kept silent. Naturally, there is dissatisfaction within the party.

He should first turn to

the members of his own party. He

is making normal, natural

statements saying that he would have won there

— statements that have nothing to do

with reality. But he has to say it.

That’s normal. Politicians always come out

and say they will win everywhere. And

Prokhorov says the same.

I have a follow-up question. And

the next stage is the election to the Moscow City Duma. And,

uh, if, well, nothing changes, mm,

compared with today, if there is no

change in intention, then in this election

Prokhorov will run. Yes,

and in fact Prokhorov will be running in this

election against you, because in reality

your electorates overlap very heavily

and many of the people who, in the

presidential election,

about one-third, if we tracked these elections,

roughly one-third, overlap significantly,

of course.

Yes. Uh,

are you preparing for that situation, do you

understand how you should act?

Do you consider Prokhorov your main

political opponent

or perhaps an ally? Let’s put it this way: I would

like Prokhorov to act

independently. If he acted

independently and properly defended

his political views,

his political principles, he would be,

without question, much more of an ally.

The issue in this upcoming Moscow City Duma election is

less about party

lists and competition between Navalny and

Prokhorov through their parties. It is a question of

single-member district candidates.

We will do everything possible to

divide up the districts and provide mutual

support so that more deputies

can be elected. As I understand it, Prokhorov

is ready for that. Whether he will be allowed to do it

or whether he will act as a spoiler

to help United Russia across all

districts? I don’t know. In this election, unfortunately,

he behaved rather

strangely. When we signed

a social contract with businesspeople,

he played out this maneuver with

Sobyanin, appointing some kind of

business ombudsman of his own. Well,

he did some strange, almost ridiculous

things that, obviously, he was

asked or forced to do. If he

takes an independent position, then,

without question, of course, he will be an ally

in the Moscow City Duma election. Although he

will take some of my electorate, just

as I will take some of his. We are competing for

the voter. This is a normal political

process. I believe I am ready to work

with these people more effectively than

Prokhorov. I believe these people will trust

me more. Naturally, Prokhorov’s view

of this problem is probably

a little different, but that’s politics.

Let’s move on. Svetlana.

Mm,

no, actually, I’m really continuing

more specifically the, mm,

topic of changing the legislation itself,

right? I mean, the fact that we drifted off,

still, do you now have

the means and methods? You yourself just

mentioned that over the past year and a half

the “rabid printer” (a Russian term for the legislature’s rapid passage of repressive laws) has completely

changed, or at least drastically changed,

the legal situation. So,

maybe, if pickets

are ineffective, perhaps there are

methods, from the standpoint of

legislation and legal consequences,

to still bring about change. Look, because

all future, mm, public protests

already risk

repeating May 6 (a reference to the Bolotnaya Square protest crackdown in Moscow in 2012),

To influence legislation and

improve it, to change it, yes,

where do you need to be?

In the State Duma. Not in the system,

— or at least in the State Duma or in the

Moscow City Duma. That is why we are going into

elections. And we clearly understand why we are doing it.

Well, people are in prison now, people are in prison now. People

are in prison now. As for Moscow, we

will use this

civil legislative initiative of ours.

There is a Moscow law under which we can

gain the right of legislative initiative if

we unite 50,000 people.

We will use that opportunity.

People are in prison and will remain there until

this government considers itself strong enough

to keep innocent people

in jail. Our task is to weaken this

government. When we weaken it and force it

to release these people, it will release them.

But they understand nothing else. No

persuasion, no petitions, none of our

legislative proposals will make it

happen, because Putin—well, it’s well known,

his phrase is often quoted: “They

got in my way, ruined the inauguration, so I

will make their lives miserable.” That is what he is doing—

making life miserable for certain

people. And this is his demonstrative

political position. He is saying to everyone:

“If you think I cannot

throw 12 randomly selected people

who are innocent into prison, then you are mistaken; I am showing you

that I can.” So we must show Putin

that by uniting,

we will force him to release

these innocent people. That is the only way.

Look, suppose, just suppose,

okay?

that the bright future has arrived and you have won,

first in the Moscow City Duma, then in the State Duma,

you have won. Will you insist on

lustration? That is, insist that

members of United Russia never again

take part in public

affairs?

I think that is an important, necessary measure.

Here we simply need to understand that, since everyone was pushed into

United Russia—doctors,

teachers—if we say that

we should exclude all of them from any systems of

governance and ban them all, for example, from

engaging in teaching

as happened, for example, in

the countries of Eastern Europe, then we would simply

throw half the teachers out of

the schools. But the people who held

top leadership positions, whom no one

forced into anything—they themselves wanted, through

corruption,

well, the heads of regional branches, for example—

those people, I believe,

are directly guilty of committing

crimes. They are directly involved in

organizing electoral fraud. And

it would be a blessing for the whole nation if

these people did not engage in political

activity, but went into anything else—

business, I don’t know, writing memoirs. This is, this is

only a ban, only a ban on

political activity, but, for example,

not criminal prosecution,

unless there are grounds to put them on trial. Lustration

does not mean that we should

just throw everyone in jail without trial or investigation.

Well, sometimes it does imply a ban on

holding public office for them.

Yes, exactly. Absolutely—people from

a certain level upward

should be barred from

public service, possibly from

teaching, possibly from

working in the mass

media. That is a matter for public

discussion. But we can see that lustration

of this kind worked in Eastern

Europe. And it was a colossal mistake by

Yeltsin that led to the degradation of

his regime: he failed to carry out even

basic lustration measures.

Alexei Anatolyevich, do you believe that

a wise politician ought to possess

magnanimity?

Yes, forgive me, but because of your

height you are compared to Boris Nikolayevich (Boris Yeltsin).

And, by the way, Vladimir Vladimirovich

accuses precisely that 15,

10–20% of that so-called creative class

that turned up at

Bolotnaya (the Bolotnaya protests), could not forgive the attack

against him. So where is your

magnanimity? Toward those people, I mean.

Toward whom? Toward those who

put people in prison in the Bolotnaya case. I have

no magnanimity whatsoever toward those

same people—for example, the regional

leaders you mentioned, where

in the regions this is often the only

means

of social advancement and so on—where is the

magnanimity of the great politician there?

Let’s not tell fairy tales here.

The people who head

United Russia executive committees in the regions—

these are not some poor unfortunates for whom

this is the only way of

self-expression. They are cynical crooks

who took those posts in order to,

excuse me, lie and steal. So

the magnanimity and great love I feel are

for the people who are being tormented by all this. If

we have, say, in

Kuzbass they fabricated a 75% turnout and 85% for

United Russia, toward whom should I feel

pity or any sympathy? Toward the residents

of Kuzbass, yes; but toward the people who

cook up those numbers, absolutely not.

We have time for the last questions.

Galina, please.

A non-serious question. May I?

Yes, of course.

Why did you climb into the fountain? I made a bet on it.

Remember? Udaltsov’s call, there was

solidarity with Udaltsov. Udaltsov—

well, listen, there is a certain logic to the

political process. People were

in a fairly hard-line mood. Probably

it was not a political process. Well, well, well,

remember, it was a monstrously grim

rally, remember, it was monstrous,

exactly. It was a monstrously grim

rally. People were in a grim mood.

And my own mood was grim enough

that I wanted to stay with those people

who wanted to stay. That was my

political choice, probably; my

state of mind at that moment was more, more

radical. Throughout this whole program you’ve been trying

all the time to steer this somehow toward

a human choice—sarcasm—

a human choice. For example, I saw it

for myself not as something meant

to say:

any normal person should go home and drink

hot tea. But in that situation I was

a politician; I had brought people, among other things, to

that rally. I wanted to express my

political position, including for

myself, for my family. So I decided for myself

that I would stay there and

stand there until the police carried me away, just as

you, by the way, had just suggested to us.

That is exactly what I did, because

at that moment I felt that this was

... today, this question about the fountain today...

worries many of our colleagues, to what extent

as I understand it, in the publication slon.r, roughly about

the fact that

sometimes there are situations when it is worth

standing in a fountain too. They do exist. It is not

the worst thing. Whether it is worth it or not.

Why did you stay?

Why didn’t you leave?

All right, one last question. Yes, I don’t really have a

question; it’s more of a comment, uh, regarding

the voting results. The fact that you

are, uh, making your main complaint about

home voting and the inclusion, uh, in

the lists of people by social workers. And I

read the same thing in your newspaper. I have to

disappoint you. It is legal.

And in this case, you are misleading

both your supporters

and others. Tatyana, I have to

disappoint you. It is absolutely illegal.

There is a law that clearly defines

who has the right to compile such

registers.

Yes. The Electoral Code of the city of Moscow.

I am telling you that a situation in which

social workers deliver to unfortunate

pensioners these food

packages and ask them. I’m not talking about the packages.

I’m not talking about the packages.

I’m explaining to you how

these lists were compiled. They delivered

food packages to pensioners and

asked: “Who do you want to

vote for?” If they said

Sobyanin, they were added to this list. That

is where the fraud lies. It is absolutely

illegal. Let’s look at the substance

of all this. There is evidence

documentary evidence. We will

present it in court. We have a large

number of witnesses. I want to say that

adding a person to the voting list

a person

through, uh,

a third party, when a third party asks

to put someone on the voting list,

is legal.

Bingo. They did not ask; most of these

people—and those people themselves confirm to us—that

that is exactly how we phrase it. Listen, if you

read my lawsuit, which I submitted to

the court, you will see it there. The people to whom

they came for home voting, they

did not ask to be put on any list. For

most of them, it was altogether

a surprising situation that people came to them,

that they were added to these lists for

voting by staff members.

I know that. I read your latest newspaper today.

I have to say, you

are distorting things.

And I have to tell you that you

are interpreting the law incorrectly. I am a

journalist. I am telling you that you, as a

journalist, are excellent, and I really

like your newspaper. I think it is very

professional, but in this situation you do not

understand the issue. I’m telling you as a lawyer

that you are mistaken. Tatyana,

last question. Maria Makiev.

A question for you as a lawyer. I remember, Alexei.

No, as a lawyer. Don’t throw me off.

So, I remember how last time you

answered this question, but the situation,

as you quite rightly noted,

is changing dynamically. What do you live on?

It’s apparently no longer legal practice now,

apparently. And I can refer you to,

sorry, by the way, to the newspaper *Vedomosti*,

which turned out to be so enterprising

that they even persuaded one of my clients

not only to reveal himself, but also

to publish the amount of the fee. So there

is even a specific figure there, if you

read it.

Do you still live off your legal

practice?

Yes. I have three clients left. I

work with them, they pay me fees,

they transfer money to me. All of this is officially

recorded in the documents of my legal

association. I pay official

taxes on it. This is my official income. And during

the campaign, I did not take

a single kopeck from donations. Only legal practice.

That is precisely why people sent me 103

million rubles. We set a record for collecting

signatures because they believe that I will not

take a single kopeck from it. I did not take

a single kopeck. I very much hope that I will never

lose these people’s trust. And going forward,

both our Anti-Corruption Foundation and,

possibly, election campaigns will be

funded by people who send

me 300–500 rubles, for which I am very

grateful to them. The very last question.

Ah, sorry, the very last question. Uh,

Alexei, is it true that there are

blacklists of journalists with whom you

do not want to speak?

Blacklists of journalists? No, such

blacklists do not exist. There are

journalists I like. There are

journalists I like to a lesser

degree. Well, for example, did I

set any conditions that there should be

some different journalists here? In

fact, I like you all very much, and I

apologize. Maybe, well, still,

you are journalists; there are no blacklists

at all. I probably make use of

a situation in which

I, as a person, well, probably,

being at the center of attention of many

media outlets, can choose when he wants

to give an interview, when he does not want

to give an interview, when he understands that

this journalist will do a proper

interview, and after that they'd have to

rewrite it to remove all the "uhs" and "ums"

from the transcript. So, well, I certainly don't have any black

lists.

And I'm probably the kind of politician

who gives an almost unimaginable number of

interviews, so many that everyone is thoroughly

sick of them by now. I like all journalists very much

and I apologize to all of you for the fact that

sometimes my answers were too

sharp today.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Alexei Navalny,

a politician and, until recently, a candidate for

mayor of Moscow. Thank you, and thanks to

my colleagues: Maria Makeeva, Svetlana

Babaeva, Tatyana Lysova, Galina

Timchenko. The program *Hard Day Night*. Every

Tuesday on TV Rain (an independent Russian TV channel). I'm

Tikhon Dzyadko. Stay with us.

In just half a minute, a short

postscript from our guest.

[music]

postscript

This is Alexei Navalny. I was on the program

*Hard Day Night*. Thank you very much for

watching. I hope you enjoyed it.

This is my first appearance on TV Rain since the

election. I wanted to thank everyone who

voted for me. We will still have

another opportunity—there will be another chance

to vote. Vote. Thank you very

much. We have a lot of work ahead of us.