With its various hacking efforts, involvement in Syria, Iran, and Ukraine, as well as a shady bromance between its president and the Republican nominee, Russia hasn’t been such a huge part of an American presidential campaign since it was known as the Soviet Union. So when CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour got to sit down with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, it was only natural that she would ask him about perhaps the biggest scandal of the campaign yet: a 2005 recording of Donald Trump bragging about sexually assaulting by “grabbing them by the pussy.” Lavrov’s answer is remarkable.
When Amanpour asks Putin’s top diplomat about Trump’s “Pussy Riot moment”—a nod to the anti-Putin punk collective that drew the Kremlin’s ire several years ago—Lavrov, in his excellent English, answers quickly. “English is not my mother tongue, I don’t know [if I would] sound decent: There are so many pussies in your presidential campaign on both sides that I prefer not to comment about this.”
In the interview, Lavrov described claims that Russia is interfering with US elections as “flattering” but “ridiculous.”
Earlier that day, Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway had a pun of her own. In a rather unfortunate choice of words—or perhaps a deliberate one—Conway said she was fed up with the GOP “pussyfooting” around support of their party’s candidate.