CNN’s New Day Defends Prisoner Exchange to Secure Release of Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan: ‘May Be the Only Way’ to Get Them Home

CNN’s New Day broke down the ramifications of the Biden administration’s reported plan to conduct a prisoner swap with the Russian government to secure the release of Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan.

Bianna Golodryga and Jim Sciutto joined Poppy Harlow and John Berman on Thursday to discuss the offer reported by CNN to exchange convicted arms dealer Viktor Bout for Griner and Whelan. Sciutto remarked that Griner and Whelan’s families would see the deal as “a good thing,” though he noted that Bout’s arms trafficking and conspiracy charges are “a different category entirely” from the charges leveled against Griner and Whelan.

“This is basically hostage taking,” Sciutto said. “They pick up Americans on made-up charges, or trumped-up charges, and those are, therefore, bargaining chips that they can use for exchanges like this. And of course, the worry is, of course, you make a deal here, who is the next one who becomes a hostage? On the flip side, this may be the only way to get those Americans home.”

Golodryga predicted that the deal would go forward despite the tense state of U.S.-Russian relations, saying “it’s a good deal on their end.” She made her point by noting that the judge who jailed Bout “has signed off on this deal” because she believes the sentence was excessive and set up under the parameters of mandatory sentencing rules.

Berman and Sciutto continued by remarking that the Biden administration was also under public pressure to secure the release of Griner and Whelan. Golodryga compounded this by saying, “this guy has American blood on his hands, but we would like the Americans back home, certainly their families.”

“From a domestic political angle, it makes sense,” Sciutto said. “It’s just, we have to remember who this guy is compared to who the Americans are who — if it goes through — are getting out.

Watch above, via CNN.