NOTE: the following article is satire, not a statement of fact. Treat it as such.
President Slow Joe Biden was giving a speech on the situation in Russia, where activist and suspected Western spy Aleksey Navalny died in prison in Siberia, where he had been locked up after requesting aid from MI6, Britain’s intelligence service, to overthrow Putin. In the speech Brandon declared that America would never imprison its political leaders, then went on to explain the attempts to lock up Trump.
Good afternoon. I — I’m heading off to East Palestine in — in a moment, but I wanted to say a few things this morning about Aleksey Navalny. You know, like millions of people around the world, I am literally both not surprised and outraged by the news — the reported death of Aleksey Navalny.
He bravely stood up to the corruption, the violence, and the — the — all the — all the bad things that the Putin government was doing. In response, Putin had him poisoned. He had him arrested. He had him prosecuted for fabricated crimes. He sentenced him to prison. He was held in isolation. Even all that didn’t stop him from calling out Putin’s lies. Even in prison, he was a powerful voice of the truth, which is kind of amazing when you think about it.
And he could have lived safely in exile after the assassination attempt on him in 2020 — which nearly killed him, I might add. And — but he — he was traveling outside the country at the time. Instead, he returned to Russia. He returned to Russia knowing he’d likely be imprisoned or even killed if he continued his work. But he did it anyway, because he believed so deeply in his country — in Russia. Reports of his death, if they’re true — and I have no reason to believe they’re not — Russian authorities are going to tell their own story. But make no mistake — make no mistake, Putin is responsible for Navalny’s death. Putin is responsible.
Continuing, he said, “And that is what makes Putin so evil. He’s the sort that would lock up the political opposition! He’d lock them up. Heck, he has locked them…well, he did lock up Mr. Navalny. Is what I meant. And that’s no good. That’s undemocratic. It’s mean. It’s a danger to our democracy in Russia. That’s all bad news for the world, Jack. Real bad news.”
“So let me pledge this: America is not Russia! That’s right, Jack. We’re a free and democratic society. He…umm…Putin, I meant, he locked up his opposition. That’s unsuccessful. That’s…I mean…that’s no good. You can’t do that. It’s bad. And so we in America will never do that. We in America believe in democracy. We think it will…we think that…um…that it is undemocratic to lock up the political opposition. So America would never imprison political leaders.”
“Speaking of, it is with great pleasure that we can announce the fine against former President Donald Trump. He’s a bad orange man. Real mean. So we are willing to do whatever it takes, not matter what, to make sure he’s off the ticket in 2024.”