America’s loudest dingbat is a bull running through a delicate china shop, a tense prisoner exchange with a country we’re engaged in a proxy war with. Just beautiful. Biden’s State Department is on the brink of bringing home Britney Griner and former Marine Paul Whelan, and Donald Trump’s sixth sense for dissent is starting to tickle.
As Griner’s detention nears its homestretch, Trump has decided it’s time to campaign against the government doing everything it can to free an American political prisoner. Over the weekend, Trump called The Troll Time’s “Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show” to spread his brand of hateful persuasion and asked about Griner.
Via The Advocate:
“She went in there loaded up with drugs into a hostile territory where they’re very vigilant about drugs,” Trump said of Griner, the center for the Phoenix Mercury. “They don’t like drugs. And she got caught. And now we’re supposed to get her out — and she makes, you know, a lot of money, I guess.”
“It certainly doesn’t seem like a very good trade, does it?” he continued. “[Bout is] an absolute — one of the worst in the world, and he’s going to be given his freedom because a potentially spoiled person goes into Russia loaded up with drugs.”
Trump siding with Russia against American interests is nothing new. This happens to a lesser extent because he is again a private citizen. His origin story misrepresents the facts. For months, his sycophants have been swearing that Griner would be home right now “if Trump was president.” Not only do we know that’s wrong, but he comes across as someone who would trade her back if he became president again. Of course, given Trump’s penchant for attacking black athletes he thinks will score points with his base (eg Colin Kaepernick), this should come as no surprise.
It’s always instructive to hear a crook who pardoned his cronies accused of fraud and served time for several serious crimes suddenly take a hard line against Americans who are serving a decade in prison for vape cartridges containing hashish oil. But yes, Griner must suffer. His hyperbole about Griner exporting drugs is the kind of brain-dead nonsense his base has been spouting for months. He latches onto the most toxic views to cross his path and takes them a step further.
He and others should oppose turning Paul Whelan into a felon facing parole after serving half his sentence. At the very least, his animus toward Americans in Russian prisons should have some consistency. Not much has changed in this regard since Trump also ignored Whelan during his presidency. In Trump’s worldview, the average person isn’t even worth knowing.
If there’s one thing Trump can look in the mirror and convince himself he knows, it’s deal-making. It was that false confidence that led to the release of 5,000 Taliban prisoners to begin peace talks in Afghanistan. His blackmail in Ukraine didn’t work so well. He tore up the Iranian nuclear deal, which forced Iran to expand its nuclear program, something Trump railed against. Griner’s critics have always misconceived that criminal transfer is not a quid-pro-quo or exchange of equal criminals. Trump is not a rational actor and it is always better to go against his recommendations.
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