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Trump congratulates Putin for Russia-US prisoner exchange.
At a Georgia rally on Aug. 3, Donald Trump congratulated Russian dictator Vladimir Putin for the historic prisoner exchange arranged by U.S. President Joe Biden that freed 16 people wrongfully imprisoned in Russia.
“By the way, I’d like to congratulate Vladimir Putin for having made yet another great deal,” Trump said. “Did you see the deal we made? Now look, we want to get people in. We got 59 hostages — I never paid anything.”
“They released some of the greatest killers anywhere in the world,” Trump added gleefully. “Some of the most evil killers they got. And we got our people back, but boy, we made some horrible, horrible deals. And it’s nice to say we got them back, but does that set a bad precedent?”
The historic release included 16 prisoners freed from Russia, including five Germans and seven Russian citizens being held as political prisoners. President Joe Biden thanked Germany, Poland, Slovenia, Norway and Turkey for helping with the multi-country prisoner swap. Biden did not praise Putin in his remarks.
In 2019, the Trump administration oversaw the release of three senior Taliban leaders imprisoned in Afghanistan, in exchange for one American, Kevin King, and Timothy Weeks, an Australian. One month later, the U.S. freed Masoud Soleimani, an Iranian scientist convicted of export violations, in exchange for the return of Xiyue Wang, a Princeton graduate student held in Iran. In October 2020, US agreed to free 250 Houthi rebels being held in Oman, in exchange for two Americans, Sandra Loli and Mikael Gidada, who were held hostage by Iranian-backed militants in Yemen.
And only two years later, dumb Trump lied again, bragging that while in office, he’d secured the release of 58 hostages without giving anything in return. Now it’s one more in his imagination.
Perhaps he’s most miffed that Gershkovich was among the freed prisoners, as he bragged previously that he would free Gershkovich before he even took office. “As soon as I win the election, I will have that reporter out.” Trump alleged then that Putin had demanded “billions of dollars” for Gershkovich’s release but failed as usual to produce any evidence to support his claim.