MOSCOW, RUSSIA — As Americans headed to the polls to cast their ballots in the 2018 U.S. midterm elections, all eyes were on the president, and the question of whether or not he fully grasps what was at stake for his administration as voters started pulling levers and marking ballots. A press release from the Kremlin seemed to answer that question in the affirmative.

“Of course we respect the American election process quite bigly,” a statement from Russian/American President Vladimir Putin said. “How can you not respect something you can so easily subvert? That being said, this administration naturally had some trepidation about letting the midterms go forward.”

President Putin said that “any president has to consider the midterms a referendum on their job performance.” He said that even though the administration hasn’t accomplished everything it wanted to, he is confident that “enough Flyover Americans believe we did a good job” that both the White House and the Kremlin will be happy with the results.

“Oh sure, my name isn’t on the ballot this year, then again it wasn’t in 2016 either, and I still ended up president.” Putin said. “Thankfully there’s that caravan of, what, six or seven trillion illegal Mexicans working its way up to the southern border; that’ll scare at least a few hundred thousand scared white folks to the polls.”

Ultimately, Putin says that his confidence in his performance during his first term inspired him to give the green light to the elections.

“It was touch and go, but we ended up calling the Orange One a couple weeks ago and told him to just let the plebs pretend to vote,” Putin wrote. “You know, like we’re actually counting all their votes fairly and not meddling and stuff. Just pretend that’s true, okay?”

If Election Day doesn’t go as Putin hopes it will, he does have a contingency plan.

“Don and I signed corporate merger papers this year in Helsinki,” Putin said. “All we have to do is have them notarized and Russia takes operational control of the United States. It’s like a hostile takeover except all I had to do is remind Donald that he smells like pee, and I know why.”

James‘ satire is found on: The Political Garbage Chute; HuffPost, Alternative Science, Alternative Facts, Not Really.News, The Pastiche Post, Satirical Facts, and Modern Liberals.