WATCH: The View host says she was on calls with Biden administration about Brittney Griner
Julia Johnson
Video Embed
The View host Sunny Hostin claimed Thursday that she and fellow host Whoopi Goldberg were in communication with the Biden administration regarding WNBA player Brittney Griner during her imprisonment in Russia.
While celebrating Griner’s release from Russian imprisonment on Thursday as a part of a prisoner swap, Hostin said, “I was on phone calls with the White House.”
She was particularly upset by claims that President Joe Biden was not working hard enough on getting American prisoners released, namely Griner. “I sort of felt like they were getting short-tripped,” she said. “The White House has been working on this every single day.”
BRITTNEY GRINER RELEASED IN PRISONER SWAP WITH RUSSIA: ‘SHE IS SAFE’
iFrame Object
“Whoopi and I knew all along they were working on it. We were speaking with them,” Hostin continued. “Secretary Blinken was in contact with us.”
She further explained that her presence on these calls was because of her status as “a member of the WNBPA Board of Advocates.”
“This was a diplomatic win for the Biden administration, but a bigger win for the United States,” Goldberg said of the news. “It’s a bigger win for us, the people.”
“We have been on this, and let’s make sure we do the same for Paul Whelan,” she added. “We’re going to stay on it and never forget that he’s there.”
Joy Behar noted that “they traded her for a really bad guy,” referring to international arms dealer Viktor Bout, nicknamed the “Merchant of Death.”
“It’s not an equal swap,” Alyssa Farah Griffin said, adding that she is happy about Griner’s release.
“I’m not in the George Bush, ‘never negotiate with terrorists,’ because sometimes you have to, but you have to make sure that there’s — it doesn’t pose too much of a risk to the homeland,” Griffin explained. “I fear, like, this is somebody who is going to someday have the blood of Ukrainians or Americans on his hands.”
Goldberg then claimed that any trade would be “tough.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“Because we got bad guys. They don’t think they have bad guys, but, you know — or they think they have bad guys. We think we have bad guys,” she said. “It’s never going to be equal.”
Griner was detained in Russia earlier this year for drug charges related to cannabis oil cartridges found in her luggage at an airport.