On Thursday night, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris stood on the tarmac at Andrews Air Drive Base and greeted journalists Evan Gershkovich and Alsu Kurmasheva and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan after their launch from Russian jail in a historic prisoner swap.
Gershkovich, who’d been held by Russia since March 2023, repeatedly embraced Biden and Harris earlier than operating to fulfill his mom. Biden eliminated the American flag pin from his lapel and stuck it to Whelan’s clothes. In the meantime, Kurmasheva, held since October 2023, was instantly swarmed by her two younger daughters. After assembly along with his household, Gershkovich walked over to reporters and expressed his thanks not just for his personal launch however for the liberty of Russian political prisoners who had been being held by dictator Vladimir Putin’s repressive regime.
“There’s one thing I would like to say,” Gershkovich mentioned. “It was great to get on that bus today and see not just Americans and Germans but Russian political prisoners.” He expressed how he had spent his time amongst prisoners held for his or her opposition to Putin’s regime and his hope that extra of them could be freed.
It was a touching, uplifting, and superb second. And it was the results of advanced diplomatic exchanges that each Biden and Harris had labored for literal years to attain.
Naturally, Donald Trump and his operating mate, JD Vance, need to make this story all about Trump.
Vance took essentially the most direct—and pathetic—method on Thursday, saying that the credit score for the discharge of American prisoners ought to go to Trump.
“We certainly want these Americans to come back home. It was ridiculous that they were in prison to begin with,” mentioned Vance. “But we have to ask ourselves: Why are they coming home? And I think it’s because bad guys all over the world recognize Donald Trump’s about to be back in office, so they’re cleaning house.”
Vance went on to name the discharge “a testament to Donald Trump’s strength.” However what he failed to say was that Whelen was arrested in Russia in 2018. Trump’s “strength” didn’t get him out then. That energy additionally failed in liberating former Marine Trevor Reed, whom Russia arrested in 2019 and freed in 2022 after Biden negotiated a deal.
The Biden-Harris administration has now secured the discharge of over 70 People held by governments world wide. Not solely is that properly above the 58 Trump claimed to have freed, a lot of these freed by Biden had been held prisoner whereas Trump was within the White Home.
Trump had beforehand acknowledged that he was the one one who may safe Gershkovich’s launch and that the journalist “will be released almost immediately after the Election, but definitely before I assume Office.”
“He will be HOME, SAFE, AND WITH HIS FAMILY,” Trump wrote on his Fact Social web site in Might. “Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, will do that for me, but not for anyone else, and WE WILL BE PAYING NOTHING!”
Shortly after being confirmed improper on Thursday, Trump criticized the prisoner alternate, saying that U.S. negotiators had been an “embarrassment.”
“I got back many hostages, and gave the opposing Country NOTHING – and never any cash,” Trump wrote in a Fact Social publish on Thursday.
That was, in fact, additionally a lie.
Trump repeatedly handed over U.S.-held prisoners in alternate for People held overseas. A few of these had been one-for-one exchanges, however some had been way more lopsided. In 2020, Trump agreed to the discharge of over 200 Houthi militants in alternate for People Sandra Loli and Mikael Gidada.
These Houthi militants had been allowed to return to Yemen, which has served as the bottom for Houthi assaults on Israel and dozens of ships within the Purple Sea. Whether or not any of the militants launched by Trump had been immediately chargeable for assaults resulting in ships misplaced and sailors killed within the Purple Sea this 12 months isn’t identified. However it’s actually doable.
What Trump and Vance are saying has nothing to do with the truth of Thursday’s alternate, which introduced People dwelling to tearful households and freed political prisoners from an oppressive Russian regime. Like Trump’s disgusting look on the Nationwide Affiliation of Black Journalists on Wednesday, the assaults on the prisoner alternate are one other unhappy try to inject Trump right into a information cycle that has largely solid him apart.
To finish this newest swap, Biden pulled collectively a coalition of worldwide allies, calling it a “feat of diplomacy and friendship.” It’s a feel-good second for the nation and the world.
“First of all, I don’t know, between the Olympics, Simone Biles’ floor routine, the hostages coming home—like, the vibe right now should be tattooing an American flag on your chest and running through the streets,” Sarah Longwell, an anti-Trump Republican, informed CNN on Friday. “But what does [Trump] do? He sits there on his phone grumpy that the hostages are home, mad that he doesn’t get to fame, like he and Putin have some special deal, so he’s going to be able to negotiate this. He’s always Trump first, America last, despite his rhetoric, and people should be more offended by things like this than a lot of the other crazy stuff Trump does.”
It’s not simply Trump who’s wanting previous. So is his me-me-me schtick.
