While politicians like Mike Pompeo and Adam Kinzinger said the deal set a dangerous precedent, Whoopi Goldberg questioned why “nobody’s bitching” about previous President Donald Trump releasing 5,000 Taliban members, whom she claimed he “traded for no.”
Alyssa Farah Griffin, who worked in the former president’s administration at the time, told the panel she was opposed to the move, which she said Trump took to “get the Taliban on board with the peace efforts, which eventually broke apart.”
POLITICAL BLOWBACK OVER GRINER’S RELEASE: #TheView panel weighs in after some Republicans claim that exchanging Brittney Griner for arms dealer Viktor Bout set a dangerous precedent. https://t.co/cVclFZyKV0 pic.twitter.com/3Wp7TYJydt
— The View (@TheView) December 12, 2022
Meanwhile, Sunny Hostin noted the “sheer hypocrisy” at work when comparing the two scenarios. Despite her “confusion” regarding talking with terrorists, she disagreed with Pompeo’s statements about exchanging “a terrorist for a celebrity.”
“[Griner is] a person. She’s a human being. She’s someone who is loved and she’s an American,” Hostin said. “So it’s about Americans, not just celebrities.”
The host next discussed Paul Whelan, a former marine who has been held in Russia since 2018 and will remain there even if Griner is released. Noting that he was detained “under President Trump’s watch,” Hostin stated that the former president “did nothing” and that “we didn’t hear about it.”
After reading off tweets from Whelan’s family members, who claimed Trump “was not prepared or interested in working toward” his release and slammed him for mentioning Whelan’s name “more times in the last 24 hours than he did in the two years of his presidency,” Hostin said, “How dare you, former twice-impeached, one-term, president says this. How dare you.”
Former President Trump appears to have mentioned my brother #PaulWhelan's wrongful detention more in the last 24 hours than he did in the 2 years of his presidency in which Paul was held hostage by #Russia (zero). I don't suggest he cares now any more than he did then (zero) https://t.co/7lnSF0zJxL
— David Whelan (@davidpwhelan) December 9, 2022