‘Is This What You Call Democracy?’ Reporter Challenges Putin to His Face on Winning Russia’s Farcical Election

NBC News reporter Matthew Bodner joined MSNBC’s Ana Cabrera on Monday to discuss Vladimir Putin’s recent comments on Alexie Navalny – the jailed opposition figure who died in a brutal Siberian gulag.

Putin was asked a very pointed question by NBC’s Chief International Correspondent Keir Simmons about the state of democracy in Russia during a press conference following his reelection in an election most observers noted had no real opposition figure and was marred by intimidation and other state controls.

“Thank you, Ana. Well it was a very good question from Keir Simmons that had a very interesting response from President Putin,” Bodner began adding:

We heard a few things. I think the big, headliner, of course, being that he says that he was open, he had accepted a proposal for a trade of Alexei Navalny for an unspecified individual or individuals in Western custody. But another very interesting thing that happened while he was answering this question, was he actually, for the first time on camera, that apparently anyone can, can, can point to, mentioned Navalny by name? And this is quite an incredible thing to, to hang on to when you consider just how long Navalny has been essentially had been his main opponent before his death last month, more than a decade.

So, an interesting thing. He said other things, of course. I think the main kind of takeaway from yesterday’s speech was this message to Russians and the world that this election shows, pure and simple, that Russia is united behind him and behind the war. Directly in response to Keir Simmons’s questions, he also mentioned, you know, he mentioned that the opposition just isn’t very good at politics. But I want you guys to take a look at the question, hear more from President Putin himself.

MSNBC then played the question from Simmons to Putin:

Mr. President, journalist Evan Gershkovich spent this election in prison. Boris Nadezhdin who opposes your war in Ukraine wasn’t allowed to stand against you and Alexei Navalny died in one of your prisons during your campaign. Mr. president, is this what you call democracy?

Putin replied, “As for Mr. Navalny, he is perished. That is always a sad event. Well, we’ve had other instances where people died in prison. There’s nothing like that ever happened in the United States?”

“It has happened, and not just once. By the way, this will be unexpected. But several days before Mr. Navalny perished. I was told by some of my colleagues, not administration employees, but some people, that there’s an idea to exchange Mr. Navalny for some people in prison in Western countries. Believe it or not, the person talking to me hardly finished their sentence when I said, ‘I agree. But just on one condition. We will exchange him for him to never come back. Let him stay there,’” Putin said.

Watch the clip above via MSNBC.