CNN 2010-12-21

（单词翻译）

Our first goal was to stop the big tax hike that was coming on January the 1st. I’ve made it clear going back over the summer that stopping all of the tax hikes was one of our main priorities for this lame-duck session. And while there was an agreement, considering that, Democrats¹ control the House, the Senate and the White House, I thought on balance it was worthy² of my vote, and I voted for it.

We don’t have to be popular, we just have to be right. Because I have been accused all over the world of a double rape³ allegation. And I'm the founder⁴ and most visible public face for this organization, a very successful smear⁵ campaign, 3.3 million Web pages out of 4.5 million Web pages that mention my name also mention the word rape. That's a, a serious issue and a serious, seriously successful smear campaign. But, I mean, I hope, when this process is over, that we're going to be very heavily armored in the, in the public view any further smear campaign because they’re trying to be won, but that’s going to fail.

Just a few minutes ago, a Manhattan federal judge approved a settlement agreement between my office and the estate of Jeffrey Picower. Monies we now know were the proceeds of the largest Ponzi scheme in all of history. The settlement represents the largest forfeiture⁶ recovery in U.S. history. More importantly, this settlement provides a significant measure of hope for the many victims of Bernard Madoff's horrific crimes, crimes which Judge Denny Chin described as extraordinarily⁷ evil. This settlement is the most substantial step to date in the ongoing⁸ effort to make the Madoff victims, whole. With the close to $10 billion now recovered, we have together collected close to 50 percent of the principle that victims lost to Madoff's Ponzi scheme.

It's not very often in my life I've been without words. I want to thank everybody associated with this program. When I started 25 years ago at a little studio in Washington, DC, I never thought it would ever last this long or come to this. So I'm going to go on, do a lot of other things. We're going to do specials here on CNN. I'm going to be seen in other places, do some radio work, be around baseball. So you're not going to see me go away. But you're not going to see me here on this set anymore. Thank you. And instead of goodbye, how about so long?