Joe Biden made a jibe at Donald Trump over the Russian release of U.S. prisoners at a speech in the White House on Thursday.
Russia and the U.S. carried out what has been hailed as the largest swap of its kind since the end of the Cold War. The Russian leader Vladimir Putin freed 16 prisoners, including the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who was detained in Russia in March 2023, and U.S. citizen Paul Whelan, a former Marine and computer security official who has been in jail in Russia since 2018.
Trump vented his anger over the prisoner exchange on Truth Social on Thursday. He wrote, “Our ‘negotiators’ are always an embarrassment to us! I got back many hostages, and gave the opposing Country NOTHING – and never any cash. To do so is bad precedent for the future. That’s the way it should be, or this situation will get worse and worse. They are extorting the United States of America. They’re calling the trade ‘complex’ – That’s so nobody can figure out how bad it is!”
Speaking at the White House on Thursday, Biden was asked by a reporter, “Trump said he could’ve gotten the hostages out without giving anything in exchange. What do you say to that?”
Biden responded, “Why didn’t he do it when he was president?” He then walked off the stage in what was labeled as a “mic drop” moment by CNN reporter Dana Bash.
But Gershkovich was captured in Russia in March 2023, meaning that Trump was not president at the time of his imprisonment – his presidency ended on January 21, 2021. During his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump said he would use his relationship with Putin to ensure Gershkovich is freed.
Paul Whelan, however, was captured in 2018 during Trump’s presidency, which started on January 20, 2017. The Trump administration was accused of ignoring Whelan’s capture by his family in a statement released on Thursday. The release said, “Early on, we were discouraged from speaking out about Paul’s case. But we believe the media attention has been a crucial factor in securing Paul’s freedom. Those first years were hard when the Trump Administration ignored Paul’s wrongful detention.”
The former president himself said he “turned down a deal with Russia for a one on one swap of the so-called Merchant of Death for Paul Whelan,” on December 11, 2022, in a post on Truth Social. He added, “I wouldn’t have made the deal for a hundred people in exchange for someone that has killed untold numbers of people with his arms deals.”
Former White House national security official Fiona Hill said on CBS‘s “Face the Nation” in 2022 that “President Trump wasn’t especially interested in engaging in that swap for Paul Whelan. He was not particularly interested in Paul’s case in the way that one would have thought he would be.”
FactCheck.org reported in 2022 that during although Trump achieved some one-sided releases of American prisoners, others were indeed exchanges.
Speaking of the prisoner exchange, Joe Biden said in his statement at the White House, “The deal that secured their freedom was a feat of diplomacy. All told, we’ve negotiated the release of 16 people from Russia—including five Germans and seven Russian citizens who were political prisoners in their own country. Some of these women and men have been unjustly held for years. All have endured unimaginable suffering and uncertainty. Today, their agony is over.”
While the U.S. has seen 16 prisoners returned home, Russia was given eight prisoners back in return, including Vadim Krasikov, who was convicted in Germany in 2021 of killing a former Chechen rebel in a Berlin park two years earlier.
Do you have a story we should be covering? Do you have any questions about this article? Contact LiveNews@newsweek.com.
