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Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markwood show on IHeartRadio.

My guest today is New York City Councilwoman, Ina Vernikoff.

Hi, Ina.

So nice to have you on.

Hi, thank you so much for having me.

So I feel a lot of affinity with you, obviously, because of our shared ex-Soviet background.

And I'm from South Brooklyn where you are a councilwoman. I wish you had been the councilwoman

when I live there. But, you know, we'll take what we can get. Did you always want to be in politics?

No, actually not at all. I always grew up having this dream of being an attorney, which I am.

And, you know, I know that you understand this so well because as an immigrant from the Soviet Union to come to the United States, not speaking a word of English, you know, not knowing what's going on in this country because we were so new here and being a child.

And then being able to go to law school, go to college, then go to law school, obtain a law degree, pass the bar exam, become an attorney and open your own law practice, like my mom would say on Broadway, is such a big deal for someone who comes from a small town in Ukraine in the former Soviet Union. I know you understand

that so well. It's the American dream. And I'd always dream to be a lawyer just because I always grew up

with this like innate sense of justice. I always wanted to see justice. And whenever I saw

be injustice, I always wanted to correct it. So I did get my dream

of being a lawyer, but never wanted to be in politics, was never interested in politics at all.

In fact, my dad used to try to feed me politics and turn on, oh, hey, watch Fox News, watch,

you know, all the channel, never had any interest in it um until obviously

i really grew up and started understanding what's going on in this country and uh it was during

the benghazi attack that i became very interested and was dumbfounded by what was happening in

american politics um and wanted to get

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