I spoke with Brittney Griner, she's safe.
She's on a plane.
She's on her way home, after months of being unjustly detained in Russia,
held under intolerable circumstances, Britney will soon be
back in the arms of her loved ones and she should have been there all along.
>> Today began with some surprisingly great news, Brittney Griner,
the WNBA Star who had been held in custody in Russia over having a small
amount of cannabis oil in her bag has been released.
Thanks to a prisoner swap.
Now, the prisoner swap is controversial in the eyes of right wingers.
We'll talk about that a little later in the show, but for
now let's focus on what actually occurred here.
Griner was released in exchange for a man by the name of Viktor Bout who
is a Russian arms dealer and there was a lot of effort to get him
extradited from Thailand to the United States to prosecute him.
But Russia demanded Bout to be the person that they exchange for
Brittney Griner and after the negotiations finally ended,
the United States agreed to that deal.
Now the prisoner swap occurred in Abu Dhabi Thursday,
according to senior Biden administration officials.
A joint statement from the UAE and Saudi Arabia said the gulf countries played
a role in mediating the exchange between the United States and Russia.
Asked when Griner would be coming home following his remarks,
Biden indicated it would be in the next 24 hours.
Now for those who you haven't been following this story too closely and
you're curious how this all kind of came about.
Griner who for years had played in the off-season for
a Russian women's basketball team, had been detained since February
when she was arrested on drug smuggling charges at an airport in Moscow.
Now despite her testimony that she had inadvertently packed
the cannabis oil that was found in her luggage, she was sentenced to
nine years in prison in early August and was moved to a penal colony
in Mordovia Republic in mid-November after losing her appeal.
And the individual that she was exchanged for
Viktor Bout is known as the merchant of death,
because of the fact that he was an arms dealer to all sorts of unsavory and
visuals including DEA agents who were posing as Colombian terrorists.
And they were trying to see if Viktor Bout would sell weapons to them.
And sure enough he did, he was eventually convicted and
sentenced to 25 years in prison here in the United States.
>> Yeah, if you're gonna sell weapons in latin American countries,
you really got to do that through the CIA.
We can't have you coming in if you're freelancing.
>> Exactly, for the United States to be the arbiters of who gets the weapons,
who doesn't get the weapons.
I mean, we sell weapons to Saudi Arabia, so
they can rain terror on people in Yemen.
[LAUGH] We don't really have a lot of room to talk.
>> Yeah, so basically they were taking out the competition.
Now having said that he's a terrible guy, he also plotted the deaths of Americans.
>> Yes. >> And so
I've got a very complicated opinion on this.
Number one.
I hate the deal, interesting.
Number one, I think you're nuts.
I'm sorry, number two, if you go to Russia, you're nuts.
We'll talk about that in a second.
I agree with Rand Paul.
Number three is I'm not going to criticize Biden for it.
Wait, how does that make sense?
I hate the deal, but I'm not gonna criticize it for.
So what you're seeing here guys?
And because first of all were the fairest show in America as you all know.
But what you're seeing with the rest of the media and rest of politicians,
etc is people who were like, you have to free Brittney Griner.
You have free Griner, Joe Biden sucks for not freeing Brittney Griner.
>> Yeah.
>> Now turned on a dime in a second, as we knew they would.
I can't believe the freed Britney Griner.
Why didn't he get Paul Whelan?
Why did he let the merchant of death go?
This is outrageous.
So I'm not interested in your bs critique just for
it to score political brownie points, right?
Which is 99.9% of what you're seeing in media today.
>> There was no winning for Biden in this case, right?
>> Yeah. >> And
we're going to get to Paul Whelan in just a moment,
cuz I think that's an important part of the story as well.
But there was no winning.
And I agree with you in terms of the deal,
because we're not talking about criminals of the same caliber.
I don't think that Brittney Griner is a criminal at all and
certain it's not a drug smuggler, that is an insane charge.
>> No, I think it goes even beyond that.
>> Yeah. >> That's of course true.
But look they basically kidnapped Griner.
It was a week before their invasion.
They knew that they needed some leverage and
they basically kidnapped her as part of a negotiation strategy.
So she had less than a gram of cannabis oil that people use for
massages and stuff.
Did she inadvertently pack that?
Probably, I mean,
wouldn't even get high off of a less of a gram of cannabis oil, right.
And by the way, we'll get to this later in the show.
But right wingers are like yeah, she went there's drug dealing,
I mean you're insane.
Shut up, right.
>> It is interesting to see which Americans they value and
which Americans they do not value, because it seems to me based on their
commentary that they don't believe that she deserved to be released at all.
It's insane.
>> Of course guys, they unspoken in that is when they see
Brittney Griner they see someone who's black and LGBTQ.
And they have their minds made up about her before anything else even happens.
But I do agree Rand Paul who's a republican.
Also note this for the record may be the only time.
It's been probably one or two about war too.
But where he's like, why would anybody go to Russia?
Right, look right now if you're an American and you,
I don't know if there's those folks who like to do the adventure once
I would like to go to North Korea and get kidnapped.
And then we got to take a lot of time and money and resources and
energy to get you a new kidnapped etc by the North Korean government.
I'm not interested.
Don't go to Russia.
If you're an American, if you go to Russia prepare to be kidnapped,
because if they can make up, they gave her nine years in a penal colony, okay.
You think they can't find something in your advil or your aspirin or
something and make up charges against you, they're just looking for leverage.
And by the way that's okay, that's Americans.
But if you're German, or you're French, or you're from a different country,
you think they're not gonna make up charges about you.
No, this point Russia is a tyrannical government and you'd be nuts to go there.
And to be fair to Brittney Griner, she had nothing to do with that.
She went before the war started.
She had no idea, she was doing her job.
>> And look part of the reason why she goes is because the amount of
money that WNBA players make isn't enough, right?
So that's why she would go play with the Russian team,
as I don't want to call it a side hustle.
But you get what I'm saying, right?
It's another opportunity to make income because WNBA players are not the same
as NBA players.
We all know that.
>> Look I wouldn't go to the gulf countries either.
I'd barely go to any country that has a dictator, cuz at any moment they can
kidnap you and there's not a thing you can do about it, all right?
So but back to why I don't like the deal.
Look number one, you're rewarding them for taking a hostage basically.
And that then incentivizes both Russia and
other countries to take random American tourists as hostages.
And go there I found just three microscopes of oil
involving something else or other, right?
And I mean, this is as Trump trumped up charges you can possibly find.
So I don't know how that you can get any lower than this.
An American was jaywalking.
That is a very serious crime in Russia, right?
But now we've done it, we've incentivized the kidnapping of American tourists.
And the reason I'm not criticizing Biden for
it is because there was a world of pressure on him.
And as everybody was screaming really sir, it's your fault for not releasing her.
I'm like, no, it's not his fault for not getting her released.
It's a Russia's fault for kidnapping her in the first place.
>> Yeah. >> So it's not fair to criticize him on
both ends, right?
But what I have done it differently, I think, of course you don't know, right?
But what I would have asked for, I know that they asked for it initially,
but there's different leverage that you could use as Paul Whelan and Eric Grinder.
Obviously they asked for that.
But then you could insist and Biden is if we're being honest,
is a lifelong, terrible negotiator.
I mean, we've seen him negotiate with Mitch, McConnell and
gets his ass handed to him every time.
That's just reality, okay.
So if he negotiated the same way and it looks like he did,
it's not surprising that we've got a pretty bad deal.
So the way that you could have done that is, hey, I want those two and
if you don't give me those two in exchange for the merchant of death,
then we're going to do an all out blitz against tourism in Russia.
And we're gonna try to absolutely pulverize your tourism industry like that.
>> I like that a lot.
>> And I wanna cost you a billion of dollars.
>> That's a really interesting bargaining chip.
Okay, so I wanna get to Paul Whelan because that's another part of
the story that is relevant now.
Paul Whelan is another American citizen who has been
convicted on espionage charges in Russia.
He denies espionage.
Russia believes that he's some sort of American spy.
I have yet to see any evidence proving that's the case.
So it seems like they're using him as a hostage as well.
And he's already been imprisoned in Russia for four years.
But Russia is unwilling to give him up and
President Biden talks about that in the next clip.
So let's take a quick look.
>> We've not forgotten about Paul Whelan,
who has been unjustly detained in Russia for years.
This was not a choice of which American to bring home.
We brought home Trevor Reed when we had a chance earlier this year, sadly, for
totally illegitimate reasons,
Russia is treating Paul's case differently than Brittany's.
And while we have not yet succeeded in securing Paul's release,
we are not giving up.
We will never give up.
We remain in close touch with Paul's family, the Whelan family.
And my thoughts and prayers are with them today.
They have to have such mixed emotions today.
And we'll keep negotiating in good faith for Paul's release, I guarantee that.
>> So the State Department has declared that Whelan was wrongfully detained.
He was unfortunately convicted of espionage and
is serving a 16 year prison sentence.
And as I mentioned earlier, he's already been in prison for four years.
Whalen, former marine who is a US, Irish, British and Canadian citizen,
was detained at a Moscow Hotel in December of 2018 by Russian
authorities who alleged he was involved in an intelligence operation.
He was convicted and sentenced in June of 2020 to 16
years in prison in a trial US officials denounced as unfair.
And while Paul Whelan's family is certainly happy and
they're celebrating the fact that Brittney Griner was released.
They're hoping that there is hope for their brother.
In this next video, Paul Whelan's brother, David kind of talks
about how disappointed they are when it comes to their family member.
But I don't wanna put words in his mouth.
Let's take a look.
>> He was very disappointed that he was left behind.
Though he was very happy that Brittney Griner got out today.
>> They've always considered me to be at a higher level
than other criminals of my sort and for whatever reason,
I'm treated differently than another individual here from
a Western country that's also on a charge of espionage.
So even though we're both here for espionage,
I'm treated much differently than he is.
And my treatment is also much different than others held for
espionage at other prisons.
I would say that if a message could go to President Biden that this
is a precarious situation that needs to be resolved quickly.
And I would hope that he and
his administration would do everything they could to get me home
regardless of the price they might have to pay at this point.
>> So that was actually Paul Whelan himself.
Apologies, we do have a video of his brother as well.
We'll get to that in a moment.
But Jake any comments on what Paul said there?
>> Yeah, look, so when our guys get taken and charged with being spies,
to be honest with you, I have no idea if it's true or not,
because I know that less than a gram of cannabis oil is nothing and
is a pretext to just basically kidnap her.
Do I know who are spies in Russia are?
No, I have no idea, right?
So Whelan is being very aggressive in saying that he's not anywhere near a spy.
Usually, spies are a little bit more reserved than that when they get caught,
right.
And it usually doesn't become a public spectacle like this one has, but
it's impossible to tell.
So I'm just being fair and saying, I don't know the evidence and by the way,
they've never presented the evidence.
>> Exactly, yeah.
>> And if you don't present evidence, you probably don't have it,
especially if you're running a tyrannical government like Putin is.
And then finally, here is Paul Whelan's brother, David,
who expresses happiness and support for Griner and her family, but is worried
that maybe the Biden administration gave up one of the bargaining chips here?
So let's take a look.
>> Any time an American comes home, it's wonderful news.
I'm so glad for Brittany and for Cheryl, it's a it's a wonderful day.
Someone from the White House let us know, which was very kind.
It's hard to process this in real time, which is what we had to do last April
when Paul was left behind before and Trevor Reed came home.
And it's a great day for the families of the wrongfully detained.
And we feel wonderful for them.
But we do worry about what's in Paul's future.
I think it's become clear that the US doesn't have any concessions that
the Russian government wants for Paul.
And so I'm not really sure what the future holds.
The Kremlin is particularly focused,
[COUGH] excuse me on parody on getting equal things.
And so if they have labeled Paul as a spy, maybe that they're waiting until
the US government captures a spy and offer that as a trade.
>> I mean, I don't think that Russia has shown that they care about parody.
I mean think about who they held hostage here, Brittney Griner for
less than an ounce of cannabis oil versus someone who
is internationally known as the merchant of death.
I mean, it's that's crazy.
>> Yeah, absolutely.
Look, my heart goes out to the side of the family there, right.
First of their class act for congratulating Biden and
Brittney Griner's family, etc on the return.
But since Whelan is not part of the deal, that means he is screwed.
And he's going to probably stay there indefinitely and he's in a labor camp too.
And it's just awful,
awful what the Russian government is doing to these folks.
But I do wanna point out something that one of our members
pointed out on twitch surfer team 850 they said.
Hey joe, why don't you take cannabis off a Schedule 1?
So as we are all piling on to Russia about, my God,
can you believe they arrested her for nine years off this tiny little thing.
Biden who promised to take cannabis office Schedule 1 here in America still
runs the government tyrannical enough that we arrest people for the same crime.
>> Yeah, I mean, I hear what you're saying and he definitely should take it off
the Schedule 1 drugs, but he did make some positive moves in expunging
records of people who were prosecuted for marijuana possession.
And he doesn't wanna prosecute people who get caught with marijuana.
So some positive moves in that direction.
And I wanna be fair,
but I agree with that comment overall when it comes to the scheduling of marijuana.
>> And finally, a lot of our members are writing in saying, man, if I was here,
I never smoke again, I disagree.
I would do the exact opposite.
As soon as I got to America, I do a press conference and
light a big blunt and go- >> On camera.
>> On camera and say, take this Putin.
And I would say all the most vicious things about Putin and
the current Russian government.
If I was her, I'd go on a campaign to do that.
>> We have no doubt that you would Jake.
>> Yes, and I would try to single handedly destroy Russian tourism and
cost them billions of dollars, all coming probably from Russian oligarchs for
the kind of government that they run.