James Carville Slams Critics of Brittney Griner Prisoner Exchange as Racist Putin Lovers
Speaking with CNN’s Jim Acosta on Saturday, Democrat pundit and strategist James Carville said in response to GOP criticism of President Joe Biden‘s prisoner exchange deal that no one in their “right mind” believes this would be the reaction were Brittney Griner a blonde White woman, and added that “most” people angered by it are also anti-Ukraine and pro-Vladimir Putin.
He threw in a comparison to a famous prisoner exchange undertaken by Israel while he was it.
Acosta played a clip of Republican criticism about giving Russia the international arms dealer known as the Merchant of Death, Viktor Bout, and asked Carville for his “reaction to that.”
“There are some people who legitimately say that prisoner exchanges just encourage more hostage-taking. I forty percent agree with them. But that’s a legitimate policy position,” said Carville. “Does anyone in their right mind think that if Brittney was a blond Chi Omega from SMU that the reaction would have been the same? Of course not!”
Carville then went into his unprompted aside about Israel.
“And by the way, the country that engages in the most uneven prisoner exchange is Israel,” he said. He brought up the 2011 agreement between Israel and Hamas — mispronouncing the name of IDF member Gilad Shalit as “Gillian Shallot” — in which 1,027 prisoners were traded for the first safe return of a captured Israeli soldier from Hamas in 26 years.
Returning to criticism of the Griner exchange, Carville said “a lot of this, like a lot of things in America, are driven by the fact that this young person is not White and is not straight, and if you don’t believe that, you’re not in tune with American politics.”
Carville closed by saying that “most” people criticizing the deal are “pro-Putin, anti-Ukraine,” but caveated that “not all” are.
On MSNBC, a guest similarly said that the GOP’s criticism of the Griner exchange is anti-LGBTQIA and racist, and added that talking about American prisoner Paul Whelan as having been “left behind” is “dangerous” to Griner.
Watch the clip above, via CNN.
UPDATE: The headline and body of this post have been updated to change the previous characterization of Carville’s invoking an Israeli prisoner exchange as being a criticism. – Ed.
