In 2022, the Media Research Center lustily cheered Russia’s unlawful detainment of WNBA player Brittney Griner because she isn’t white or heterosexual, falsely smearing her as a drug smuggler (all she had was two vape cartridges of cannabis oil), and was upset that President Biden got her released in a prisoner swap with Russia — black lesbians like Griner deserve to rot in prison, apparently. When Biden got more U.S. prisoners unjustly held in Russia released, the MRC was angry again, though mostly at Biden for getting credit. Alex Christy huffed in an Aug. 1 post:
Former CNN analyst turned Washington Bureau Chief for The Grio, April Ryan, joined former CNN host turned MSNBC anchor Ana Cabrera on Thursday to discuss the news that Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former Marine Paul Whelan are being released from Russian prison as part of a multi-nation prisoner swap. For Ryan, the news provided an opportunity to hail President Joe Biden’s economy and Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign.
Christy then played whataboutism: “Donald Trump likes to view himself as a great hostage releaser as well, but for the media, the rules of how to react to prisoner swaps change based on what party controls the White House.” Christy didn’t explain why he’s so mad at these prisoners getting released. A couple hours laters, Christy raged that Biden’s tweak of Trump was reported:
CNN’s Dana Bash could not conceal her excitement on Thursday’s installment of Inside Politics as she hailed President Joe Biden’s anti-Trump “mic drop moment” at the end of his press conference announcing the prisoner swap involving former Marine Paul Whelan and Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich. Meanwhile, chief national security correspondent Jim Sciutto would claim that the deal is a victory for Biden’s worldview and a defeat for Trump’s.
It was all set up as Biden was ending his presser when Reuters White House correspondent Andrea Shalal lobbed a softball Biden’s way, “President Trump has said repeatedly that he could’ve gotten the hostages out without giving anything in exchange, what do you say to that? What do you say to President Trump? Former president.”
Biden replied, “Why didn’t he do it when he was president?”
With the press conference over, Bash appeared with a giant grin to recap, “I think that was what they call a mic drop moment at the end there. ‘Why didn’t he do it when he was president?’”
Christy again played Turmp whataboutism: “Still, Trump does view his record in hostage releases as one of his strongest, so trying to turn this deal into a referendum on how Trump and Biden view U.S.-Norway or U.S.-Germany relations is, to use the left’s new favorite word, weird.”
Curtis Houck served up his own whining fit:
Minutes after word began trickling out Thursday morning that a major prisoner swap between the United States, Russia, and five other countries was underway that’d bring home The Wall Street Journal’s Evan Gershkovich and former Marine Paul Whelan, CBS Mornings immediately went political and went right to speculating about what this will mean for President Biden’s “legacy” while Trump’s “hype factor” promising to get Gershkovich out has been “silenced.”
Fill-in co-host Kristine Johnson took it in a political direction with this ask of chief White House correspondent Nancy Cordes: “I’m also thinking about the Biden administration as a whole, the President’s decision to drop out of the race and now this news. I know it was a major priority for his administration. How does this look then for his legacy?”
Cordes eventually focused things back on the difficulty of negotiating with these hostile regimes, but briefly entertained the political angel:
Houck then whined that “chief Washington correspondent Major Garrett took a pot shot at Trump” by pointing out that Trump made an election promise out of getting Gershkovich released. He didn’t explain why reporting a fact was a “pot shot.”
Christy returned with more whining that Biden got credit for the prisoner swap:
Washington Post associate editor Jonathan Capehart had nothing but effusive praise for President Joe Biden on Friday’s PBS News Hour as he marveled at the prisoner swap with Russia being, “not bad for an 82-year-old man everyone said had cognitive decline and were questioning his mental acuity.”
Host Geoff Bennett set the table, “Well, as we end our conversation, I want to talk about the fact that Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan were among those two dozen detainees released as part of the biggest prisoner exchange between Russia and the West since the Cold War. Lasting takeaways. President Biden said it was a feat of diplomacy.”
Capehart oozed, “Yeah, not bad for an 82-year-old man everyone said had cognitive decline and were questioning his mental acuity. When you read what… happened in the Wall Street Journal, that man was all over it.”
Christy didn’t mention that the Wall Street Journal is right-wing — but since it wasn’t playing along with his biased political narrative du jour, he had to find someone who did: “Johnson then turned to David Brooks fill-in, Washington Free Beacon editor-in-chief, Eliana Johnson. Johnson was more subdued, ‘It’s wonderful that they’re home. However, we need to stop doing deals where we trade terrorists and assassins for reporters and dissidents.’”
The MRC, however, was unusually subdued about the release of Whelan, describing him only as a “former Marine.” In 2022, though, it offered much more profuse praise for Whelan since it preferred his release over that of Griner. As before, the MRC hid Whelan’s background, the fact that He received a bad-conduct discharge from the Marines following a court martial for attempted larceny, false statements and dereliction of duty, among other things.