A Republican pollster highlighted the contrast between president Joe Biden's behind-the-scenes negotiations to secure the release of American hostages from Russia and Donald Trump's "grumpy" social media criticism of the prisoner swap.
Biden finalized the agreement to release Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, along with other prisoners held in Russia, about an hour before he announced that he would end his re-election campaign, and Trump insisted he could have gotten a better deal – although his former rival asked why he didn't when he was in office.
"First of all," Longwell told CNN, "I don't know, between the Olympics, Simone Biles' floor routine, the hostages coming home – like the vibe right now, should be tattooing an American flag on your chest and running through the streets, but what does this guy do? He sits there on his phone grumpy that the hostages are home, mad that he doesn't get to fame like he and [Vladimir] Putin have some special deal, so he's going to be able to negotiate this. He's always Trump first, America last, despite his rhetoric and people should be more offended by things like this."
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Longwell said the former president's negative attitude toward his own country had infected the entire Republican Party.
"You know, a lot of the other crazy stuff Trump does because these are the points where he really shows how he does not love America, right?" Longwell said. "Donald Trump, this is where Republicans have lost the plot on who they were and who I felt like we were for the 20 years that I cared about being in the party. One of the reasons I became a Republican was they felt like they loved America, felt like they thought America was a good place, that we were often in the right. But Donald Trump describes it as a dark place, isn't excited when we bring the hostages home. He's not even being cool about the Olympics."
"I think this is a stark contrast in people who are out there doing their jobs for America," she added, "and somebody who's sitting on his phone sending out nasty tweets about America."
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