North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, a Republican, said Russia likely agreed to the prisoner swap announced Thursday because it believes former President Trump “is going to win” the next election.
Burgum joined Fox News Channel’s Dana Perino and Bill Hemmer on Thursday and said it was a “day of gratitude and celebration” that Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former Marine Paul Whelan had returned home.
“The reason Russia wanted to make a deal now is because they think President Trump is going to win and they don’t want to do business with him,” Burgum said in a statement. Highlighted by Mediaite.
The governor also criticized President Biden’s “track record on hostage negotiations” and rising international tensions amid the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine and between Israel and Hamas.
“This doesn’t make the world less safe, and I think this is great for the families, but this is a political move and it’s why Russia is now trying to extract maximum concessions from a weakened President Biden,” Burgum said.
Biden announced Thursday that Gershkovich, Whelan and several other prisoners from various countries had been released as part of the largest prisoner exchange between the United States and Russia since the Cold War.
Russia accepted eight prisoners who had been detained and released 16 who had been wrongfully detained or who were serving heavy sentences for minor crimes.
Negotiations had been underway for months, but the final details of the deal were hammered out just hours before Biden was scheduled to stop campaigning for reelection, a move some White House officials said signaled Biden was willing to put the presidency ahead of his own political ambitions.
Former President Trump late Thursday called for more details about the prisoner exchange to be released and boasted about his own record of bringing Americans home.
