Washington Post columnist criticizes hostage exchange that freed Brittney Griner, claims it will “create more hostage-taking”
Marc Thiessen: “When you hand over people like this, it creates an incentive for more hostage-taking”
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From the December 8, 2022, edition of Fox News' Special Report with Bret Baier
MARC THIESSEN (GUEST): Any time you get an American home it's a good feeling. But the price is pretty high. The merchant of death, this guy is -- it's not a good feeling now because is he's not in U.S. custody. And, you know, you saw that the administration has been saying, "well, this is just how things have to be done. It's part of the businesses of hostage -- recovering hostages is you've got to give up bad people in order to do it." No, you don't.
Donald Trump was the most successful president in modern times in getting American hostages back. He got 56 people back from 24 countries during his presidency. He did more in four years than the Obama-Biden administration did in eight, and he did it from some of the most hostile regimes in the world. He did it from Venezuela, from North Korea, from China. He got people back from the Taliban. And as Mike Pompeo pointed out, he did it without making concessions to our enemies that encourage more hostage-taking.
He didn't, for example, release people from Guantanamo Bay in exchange for Taliban captives. He didn't send pallets of cash to the Iranian regime that they could use to fund terrorism. And so when you do this this way, when you hand over people like this, it creates an incentive for more hostage-taking. Because now every regime around the world knows if you -- if we've got somebody in custody, if we arrest one of their nationals, just to pick up an American, get them some trumped up charges and we'll cut a deal with you. It's going to create more hostage-taking.