An exclusive transcript of Donald Trump's speech denying his ties to Russia

My fellow countrymen (by which, of course, I mean Americans):

Over the past several weeks, my opponent Hillary Clinton has sought to insinuate that I am under the control of Russia. Now, two American propaganda journals have also reported on my supposed contact with Russian officials.

I just want to state, for the record, that all of this utter nonsense. I am no puppet. No puppet am I. I am non-puppet.

A puppet? Nyet.

These news articles—from apparatchiks like Slate and Mamachka Jones— are pure agitprop, leaked by sympathizers in the korrupt United States politburo.

I have had no contact with Vladimir Putin; I have no way of knowing whether his email signature contains a lyric from “Any Man of Mine” by Shania Twain; and I do not feel a little tingle of pleasure every time my Gchat pops with a new message from [email protected].

I don’t know Vladimir Putin. I don’t know what he smells like. We have never been horseback riding in the Moscow countryside, shooting our AK-47s at heavily tranquilized gorillas while dressed up as our favorite characters from Suicide Squad.

Let me state it again: Vladimir Putin and I have never sang karaoke, and I have never been the Kiki Dee to his Elton John on a killer duet of “Don’t Go Breakin’ My Heart.”

Have Vladimir Putin and I stayed up all night debating our favorite Nancy Meyers movies? That question is almost as ridiculous as thinking that the best Nancy Meyers film is Something’s Gotta Give.

My enemies are upset because I want strong leadership in America, like they have in Russia.

We need a leader who’s not afraid to push a senator down a staircase, or poison a journalist who’s asking too many questions, or sentence a punk rock band to 300 years of hard labor for calling the government “rotten” in a song lyric.

When did America stop poisoning people? Why isn’t Green Day in prison? These are the questions my campaign is raising.

And I’m not going to stop asking questions, either. Questions like: Why are newspapers allowed to exist? What’s so bad about gulags, anyway? Should we be teaching the Cyrillic alphabet to our children?

We’re going to poison so many dissidents when I’m president!

Look, maybe Vladimir Putin does support my candidacy, and it is possible he speaks to me every night through a little earpiece while I lucid-dream about a whitewater rafting trip he’s been promising to take me on.

But would it be so bad if America and Russia got along? Think of the assassinations we could carry out in Bratislava together. Think of the political prisoners we could exile to Quebec.

Think of all the email we could hack into, if the top technologists at the KGB were working with my son Barron.

Think of the poison we could make!

And so to all of my comrades, my deplorable babushkas, my Commissars-in-town, my luftballons: Vladimir Putin, who I don’t know,  doesn’t control me, is not such a bad guy.

He has a strong handshake, a race car bed in his guesthouse, and several parcels in downtown Moscow that would make terrific golf resorts for gasohol monopolists and opium magnates.

But of course, I’m putting America first. Or my name isn’t Donald Fyodorovich Trump.

До свидания.